Heathrow airport live: More delays expected after fire chaos as airport says it’s now fully operational again

With planes departing from London Heathrow expected to be packed, airlines have been told by the airport management to expect long security queues.

After around 120,000 outbound passengers were unable to depart on Friday, every seat on every aircraft is likely to be filled.

On average in normal times, one in five seats is empty.

The 6am Operational Update said: “Our three key recovery objectives are: maintaining a safe and secure operation, managing residual risks, and transitioning back to business as usual.

“Operationally, all tunnels and terminals are open, with additional resources in place to handle any issues.

“Security is expected to be challenging, but manageable. One-stop security has been postponed for today.

“Minor issues with baggage systems in Terminal 2 are being monitored.

“There are also incorrect automated announcements by London Underground and National Highways signage claiming Heathrow is closed. This is being rectified.”

After more than 1,300 flights were grounded at London Heathrow, around 100 more have been axed by airlines whose flight crew and aircraft are out of position.

British Airways has cancelled almost 80 flights on Saturday after almost its entire schedule was grounded on Friday.

At least 20 long-haul inbound flights are cancelled, including four from New York JFK. Six outbound flights – to Boston, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Dubai and Riyadh – have been grounded.

Twenty BA short-haul flights serving domestic and European destinations have been grounded.

Virgin Atlantic has cancelled six inbound arrivals after the outbound flights could not operate on Friday, and the morning flight to Montego Bay in Jamaica.

Other long-haul cancellations today include one Singapore Airlines flight, WestJet to Calgary and two flights to Delhi – one on Air Canada, the other on Air India.

Turkish Airlines and Brussels Airlines have also cancelled flights to their hubs, Istanbul and Brussels.

A spokesperson for Heathrow said early this morning that the airport was “open and fully operational”, adding: “Teams across the airport continue to do everything they can to support passengers impacted by yesterday’s outage at an off-airport power substation.

“We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through the airport.

“Passengers travelling today should check with their airline for the latest information regarding their flight.”

Flights have begun landing at Heathrow as it aims to return to normal operation today after the airport was shut over a loss of power, with restrictions on overnight flights temporarily lifted.

Flights resumed at the west London airport yesterday evening following hours of closure after a blaze knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes late on Thursday evening.

Heathrow Airport’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye told reporters on Friday afternoon: “We expect to be back in full operation (tomorrow), so 100 per cent operation as a normal day.

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

According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, British Airways (BA) flight BA56 from Johannesburg, South Africa was the first regular passenger flight to land at Heathrow since Thursday evening, touching down at 4.37am.

BA, which has a major presence at Heathrow, said it expects to operate around 85 per cent of its scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday.

Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said.

According to Heathrow’s website, there is no formal ban on night flights but 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 as well as a nightly limit, which caps the amount of noise the airport can make at night.

Ellen Deasy, 29, was surprised by her cousin Jenna with a holiday to Venice for her 30th birthday but had to settle on Portsmouth instead.

With dreams of gelato and gondoliers dashed by the Heathrow Airport fire, she told The Independent: “We woke up at about 3.30am and the first thing we saw were pictures of this fireball and the headlines.

“We were planning on riding the gondolas, eating some pasta and having some ice cream, but now we are going to Portsmouth.

“I was so excited. It would have been a dream birthday but now my thirties haven’t started in the way I hoped.”

Among those whose holiday plans were ruined were Warwickshire couple Nicola and Justin Sidwell, who were set to fly off to Tokyo for a dream holiday.

“We’re now stuck in limbo,” Mr Sidwell told The Independent from the couple’s hotel room. “We have been sitting in our hotel waiting to hear something from British Airways since 5am. It is a nightmare.”

Airlines are obligated to provide care for stranded passengers, including meals and accommodations, but are not required to offer compensation as the fire was beyond their control, writes Simon Calder.

Up to 291,000 passengers were set to fly from Heathrow airport yesterday, with 1,330 flights scheduled throughout the day, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Up to 665 departures were scheduled, equating to over 145,094 seats, and 669 flights were due to arrive, equating to 145,836 seats.

British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle said the event would have a huge impact on customers in the coming days.

“To give you an idea of the scale of disruption we face which we’re working to minimise, today we were due to operate more than 670 flights carrying around 107,000 customers, with similar numbers planned over the weekend,” he said.

EasyJet said it was putting larger aircraft on key routes on Friday and over the weekend to provide additional seats to help customers affected by the Heathrow closure.

Ryanair has also put on extra flights from Dublin to London Stansted “to rescue passengers affected by today’s Heathrow closure”.