Heathrow closure: airport resumes flights Friday

hopes for full resumption on Saturday

Heathrow was reportedly shut down due to a fire incident, of which the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

According to an online media, the Guardian, restrictions on overnight flights have been temporarily lifted.

This is to help ease congestion at Heathrow, the Department for Transport has said in a post on X.

Diaspora Digital Media had brought the report of the shutdown.

According to Heathrow’s website, there is no formal ban on night flights.

However, since the 1960s, the Government has placed restrictions on them.

There is an annual limit of 5,800 night-time take-offs and landings between the hours of 11.30pm and 6am.

This limit also accomodates a nightly limit, which caps the amount of noise the airport can make at night, PA reports.

The DfT also said it had allowed passengers to use rail tickets flexibly.

Travel consultant Paul Charles has told Reuters that Heathrow’s closure could cost the aviation sector about £20m a day.

This comes with no guarantee the airport would reopen on Saturday.

“Heathrow is such a vital piece of the UK’s infrastructure that it should have fail-safe systems,” he added.

Tony Cox, an international risk management consultant, said:

“I can’t remember a piece of critical infrastructure being wholly shut down for at least a day because of a fire.

I can’t think of anything comparable.”

A passenger has finally touched down at the airport after travelling for over 32 hours.

Joshua Richardson’s flight from Quantum, Perth, was diverted to Paris at 4am today.

Om the flight were over 400 passengers from two planes were put on coaches to their final destinations.

He arrived in Heathrow after travelling for over 32 hours in total, still needing to get to Oxford.

The 31-year-old told reporters:

“We first found out because the in-flight entertainment changed from Heathrow to Paris, and people were like, what’s going on?

“The pilot said Heathrow had lost power – the only place we could divert was Paris.

“We had to circle Paris for a bit, and you could see other planes circling too.

“There’s going to be some stories of people being messed up by this, so I won’t complain.

“All I am is tired and cranky.”

The chief executive of Heathrow said the airport expects to return to “100% operation” on Saturday. .

Thomas Woldbye told the press:

“We expect to be back in full operation, so 100% operation as a normal day.

“[Passengers] should come to the airport as they normally would. There’s no reason to come earlier.”

Of the airport’s closure on Friday after an outage caused by a fire, Mr Woldbye said:

“This is unprecedented.

“It’s never happened before and that’s why I’m saying it has been a major incident.”

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