Heathrow airport closure due to nearby fire - check your flights if you’re leaving in next 48 hours

The 'domino' effect will make things messy for several days.

With 1300+ flights cancelled, that figures to be 200-250k people to deal with being " out of order" for their flights

UGH.

Passengers are being told not to go to Heathrow for any reason.

The Heathrow Express is not running.

As of my writing this, there are severe delays on the Elizabeth Line between Paddington and Hayes & Harlington. No service between Hayes & Harlington and Heathrow. All due to the fire.

This is going to have an effect on flights throughout the world.

Not only are planes en route to Heathrow being diverted to airports all over the world, but those same planes needed for flights over the next few days will not be in the right position.

If you have any long haul flights, flights within Europe or to areas of the world out of Heathrow for the next few days, you need to keep an eye on those flights.

Expect trying to get through to airlines to be very difficult.

Flights already in the air are being sent to airports all over the place. Shannon in west Ireland is accepting some of those coming in from N America. Trouble is that many airports are not geared up to having hundreds of passengers suddenly arriving.

As of now, flights are being diverted to

London Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, Birmingham, Dublin, Shannon, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Lyon, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Helsinki.

Flight from the west coast of the US are being diverted to airports on the east coast of the US. Some are being diverted to Canadian Airports like Montreal and Goose Bay.

And some flights have basically just turned around and returned to their departure airport.

Planes and crews will be out of position for their next planned flights. However, it seems they are trying to divert aircraft to airports where the airlines have operations. Example, many Delta flights are being diverted to Amsterdam.

Valerie, thanks so much for posting this…I’m in London and just happened to check the forum for some other info..what a thing to wake up to! I’m due to fly out Sunday…hopefully that will happen, but your post allows me to be proactive in planning to stay longer if needed.

We are affected by this today. We woke up ready to head to Heathrow, discovered the news, and immediately rebooked for Sunday…from Birmingham. The cascade effect of this is that Eurostar tickets are selling out as people try to reposition themselves to Amsterdam and Paris.

Shocked that an airport of Healthrows size doesn't have backup power.

I’m in Paris and turned on the news while I was getting ready this morning and to be honest I’m mesmerized by the story. I have recently gotten into Britain’s busiest airport on YouTube and feel like I now know more about Heathrow than I probably should and realize that this is just a fiasco.

If you are flying anywhere internationally in the next 2 to 3 days pay close attention to your flight- check it often. I’m lucky I don’t leave Paris until Tuesday so I’m crossing my fingers that everything will be OK but this is going to have a ripple impact for the next 4 to 5 days easily. If that plane and that crew that were supposed to go to Heathrow wound up going to Nice you’ve got to wait until the crew is now legal to fly before it can even take off for London and then when they get to London, they’ve used hours and you’ve got to figure out how that impacts them for their next flights.

. It’s just going to take several days to work through the system. Airlines do not have lots of extra planes and crew just hanging around, waiting on something like this to happen

Even if you’re sitting here thinking it’s OK I’m going NY to Madrid on Iberia. Check your flights quite often for the next few days. Your Iberia plane could have been impacted by this and may very well be impacting your trip.

I just noticed somebody had said they were shocked there’s not back up power.

Apparently there was a back up and similar to what happened in Atlanta a few years ago. It was too close to the original so it went down in the fire too.

There are apparently generators on property to power the operation in an emergency, but they are not sufficient to power the entire airport at this time so that’s where the backup situation is

What an unfortunate situation. Hoping for a speedy but cautious resolution and praying for safe travels to everyone who is impacted.

Over 60,000 local properties also lost power, people have been evacuated from their homes, there are also many local road closures including Junctions 3 and 4 of the M4.
The Heathrow Express is now running on a reduced service solely to evacuate passengers and staff from the Airport Terminals who were there when the fire broke out. The Piccadilly line is running a normal service on the full route.
As a precaution anti terrorist police are currently leading the investigation into the cause although there is no current evidence that this was terrorist related.

Oh, what a mess! I have a flight coming into Heathrow this coming Thursday and I am keeping all fingers and toes crossed that everything will go smoothly. Good luck to anyone with flights today and the next days!

We’re sat in a hotel at Delhi airport hoping to fly to LHR tomorrow. Right now 2 BA flights today from here have been cancelled. If LHR opens tomorrow by at least lunchtime we should be OK. But my son, who works at MAN has warned to expect a long delay.

RAIL TICKET EASEMENTS-
You may use your ticket on London Buses and London Underground Piccadilly line services from the airport towards London Paddington, in this direction only, at no extra cost.

This includes buses to and from Uxbridge for the underground (routes A10, U3 and 724). An all bus route exists to Victoria via White City from Uxbridge- route SL8 then the #148 or C1.

Customers who had planned to fly today and now need to return home can use the return portion of their ticket to their original destination, any restrictions on these tickets has been lifted.

Customers with tickets for today who need to defer their travel to or from Heathrow Airport will be able to use their existing rail ticket to travel for any flights rescheduled due to the disruption. Customers will need to show their amended airline ticket when travelling.

Additionally, if your flight has been diverted to Manchester Airport, you may use Northern services to help complete your journey, at no extra cost.

Some Elizabeth Line Services advertised to and from Heathrow are starting/terminating short at Hayes and Harlington. Six services per hour are running between Paddington and Hayes and Harlington.
Train access is being controlled at Paddington and Hayes to prevent overcrowding on the reduced service.

Shocked that an airport of Healthrows size doesn't have backup power.

It does however the airport recently moved from diesel powered generators to a biomass fueled one but it didn't work. Allegedly it was designed only to run alongside the national grid not independently from it so if the grid goes down then it won't work which defeats the object really.

What a terrible situation.

We go on holiday or vacation to hopefully have. a wonderful time and sometime 'life happens" And some persons might be trying to see someone who is very ill or attending the funeral services.

For those who are terribly disrupted, I hope there will be some compensation by insurance of some kinds. One more reason, why you should always travel with insurance.

Because I like cruising, I wonder how many travelers might miss their cruise ships.

What about if this happened in June, July or August, during the heavy travel season. Hate to think of it.

Heathrow is now saying it will resume some flights later today and hopes to have full service by tomorrow:

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cly24zvvwxlt?post=asset%3A0b351437-b943-47ee-a1fe-5fd4f4ad7cdb#post

Typo there I think Frank. Heathrow is saying it hopes to run services later, not that it will not.

I’ve just listened to the BBC news, it’s saying only go to Heathrow if your airline has advised you to.
I hope it’s all resolved soon.

BA have 8 specific long haul flights leaving after 8pm tonight. Passengers on those flights only have been advised to proceed to the airport.

The Elizabeth Line is about to restart a limited service (the first passenger carrying service London bound left at 5.20pm), and the Heathrow Express is still running. Currently airport bound services on HEx are for staff only- but there may be an information lag there.

Repatriation inbound flights from European hubs to which they were diverted may commence during the evening.

British Air has let some passengers know they should come to the airport

It appears terminals 2,3 and 4 have at least some power.

Thinking of all you fellow travellers today! Hope it all works out soon! :)

Yes, typo. I'm working on a phone and the eyes aren't as young as they used to be.

A BA A380 that was diverted earlier today to Gatwick has now repositioned to Heathrow.

Three flights from South Africa are enroute to LHR.

https://www.heathrow.com/departures
Heathrow will running a reduced operation prioritising repatriation and relocation of aircraft.

Long Haul flights from Africa, Asia and the US have departed for Heathrow.

The first three departures from LHR are airborne headed to Capetown, Riyadh and Singapore.

More diverted aircraft are headed to LHR from different European airports. I'm guessing we'll see more once crews have had enough rest time and before Heathrow must close for noise curfew.

The night curfew at Heathrow has been lifted for tonight only to provide flexibility to get aircraft relocated.

I have also heard that Engels is closed until further notice.

I hope Marx is OK then.

We have hit very lucky. We’re in Delhi in the lounge and checked into a BA flight due back at Heathrow at 15.10 today. Yesterday there were 2 flights cancelled and one sent to Munich ( and passengers bussed to London!) so we feared the worst today but it looks like everything is going to plan (crossed fingers).

I wonder how travelers that would normally be transiting through without an ETA were treated if they needed to exit the airport?
I'm just guessing the ETA requirement might have been suspended.