A large fire at London’s Heathrow Airport is to have a huge knock-on for flights coming into and leaving Ireland this weekend.
More than 1,300 flights to and from the airport will be disrupted today due to the closure of the airport following a fire at a nearby electrical substation.
Thousands of homes have been left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation caught fire in west London.
Online flight tracking service FlightRadar24 said the closure would affect at least 1,351 flights to and from Heathrow.
London fire crews are battling the blaze at an electrical substation in Hayes (London Fire Brigade/PA)
UP to 120 flights to the airport were in the air when the closure was announced.
Heathrow is the UK’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.
A Heathrow spokesperson said: “Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage across the airport due to a large fire at a nearby electrical substation. Whilst fire crews are responding to the incident, we do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored.
“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, we have no choice but to close Heathrow until 23h59 on 21 March 2025. We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.
“We will provide an update when more information on the resumption of operations is available. We know this will be disappointing for passengers and we want to reassure that we are working as hard as possible to resolve the situation.”
It’s going to impact a number of flights from Ireland, but will also hit airports here who will have to accommodate diverted planes.
Online tracking services showed flights being diverted to Gatwick, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland’s Shannon Airport.
