London Heathrow Airport Closed: What We Know So Far

London Heathrow Airport will be closed all Friday due to a “significant power outage.” This follows a serious fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport.

“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 2359hrs [11:59pm] on 21 March. Passengers are advised not to travel to the airport and should contact their airline for further information,” the airport said in a statement on X.

According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, there are a total of 679 arrivals and 678 departures scheduled at Heathrow on Friday.

How Many Flights are Affected?

According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, at least 120 flights bound for Heathrow will be diverted due to the closure of the airport. Heathrow has 1,351 scheduled flights on Friday, all of which will be canceled.

British Airways is worst hit. The flag carrier had approximately 30 diversions as of 6am local time, and more than a dozen aircraft still in the air. The share price of IAG - its parent company - was down more than 2% as of 9:30am local time.

Meanwhile, American Airlines has 10 diversions and Virgin Atlantic reported 9 diversions, according to Flightradar24.

A senior industry source told Skift that the situation is "chaos." They warned that knock-on disruption should be expected for days as aircraft and crews will be out of place.

Amsterdam, London-Gatwick, Frankfurt, and Shannon airport in Ireland are accommodating the maximum number of diversions so far, although this could change as the morning progresses.

Elsewhere, United Airlines announced that seven of its flights have either returned to their point of origin or redirected to other airports. All flights scheduled to depart for Heathrow on Friday have been canceled.

Skift at the Scene

The North Hyde electricity substation in Hayes is the source of the power supply problems impacting Heathrow.

Skift reporter Darin Graham visited the site on Friday morning and described what he saw: "There’s a smell of electrical smoke and burning in the air in West London near the substation that is on fire. There are a few fire engines around. It seems that there are some firefighters above the substation in a fire brigade crane. They have helmets and protective gear on but they are surrounded by smoke. From the amount of smoke you can see why there are warnings the disruption at Heathrow might go on for days."

Update from Airlines

A Heathrow-bound Air India flight from Mumbai will be returning to its origin, while the carrier's service from Delhi is being diverted to Frankfurt, Air India said in a media statement. “All our remaining flights to and from London Heathrow have been cancelled for 21 March. We will update about resumption of operations as soon as we have more information,” the airline said.

Air India flights to London Gatwick are unaffected.

Emirates in a statement said that its flights — EK001/002, EK029/030, EK031/032 — have been cancelled. The airline said it is offering customers affected by the cancellations the option to rebook to travel to other UK airports, or to travel on a later date.

Low-cost carrier Ryanair is adding "up to eight" rescue flights between Dublin and London Stansted. Four extra services will depart the Irish capital on Friday afternoon, with another four operating on Saturday morning.

Travel Industry Response

Julia Lo Bue-Said, CEO of The Advantage Travel Partnership highlighted the difficult timing for the outage: "Friday is typically the busiest day for travel with people returning from business trips, going on holiday or visiting friends and family,  so all airports will likely be incredibly busy. Therefore, the reality is that London airports would have been busy today already and this incident will exacerbate it further."

London Gatwick Airport in a statement said it is “supporting by accepting diverted flights as required.” The airline said it has so far accepted seven diverted flights originally scheduled to land at Heathrow, including services from Singapore, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town and Doha

"Flights are operating from London Gatwick as normal today," the airport added.

Heathrow is one of the busiest two-runway airports in the world with about 1,300 take-offs and landings a day. In 2024 Heathrow welcomed a record 83.9 million passengers, registering a 6% annual passenger growth, the airport said in a statement last month.