More than 400 passengers travelling between Barbados and the United Kingdom (UK) have been displaced after a massive power outage caused by a fire at a London substation shut down Heathrow Airport – Europe’s busiest – for most of yesterday, disrupting global air travel.
Chief executive officer of Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) Inc., Hadley Bourne, confirmed that multiple flights were cancelled or forced to return mid-route due to the blackout, which crippled Heathrow’s operations and led to the diversion of aircraft throughout Europe.
“What I will say is that the two flights that were en route to London yesterday returned to Barbados last night (Thursday) and remained here overnight,” he told the Saturday Sun. “Yes, there was some disruption to the schedules and some passengers were displaced and had to be accommodated at various hotels, guest houses.”
He said while some passengers were lodged at nearby accommodations, others remained overnight at GAIA.
“Yes, some persons would have stayed at the airport. We’re looking at over 400 passengers who would have been displaced, possibly more.”
The incident, which Heathrow officials confirmed was triggered by a massive fire that engulfed a nearby electricity substation Thursday night, led to a total shutdown of the airport’s operations for most of yesterday. At least 1 351 flights – carrying up to 291 000 passengers – were affected. According to Reuters, many of them were long-haul services that either diverted or returned to their departure points, including flights from Barbados.
Heathrow’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye said teams had “worked tirelessly” to restore operations, promising a return to full service
by today. “What I’d like to do is to apologise to the many people who have had their travel affected. We are very sorry about all the inconvenience,” he said.
Despite the promise of resuming normal operations, Bourne warned that lingering delays and a backlog of disrupted routes could continue to impact Barbados-bound travel over the weekend.
“Even if they reopened, with the level of disruption they would have had in their networks, it may still take time to sort out these slight delays and cancellations that have ensued.”
Highlighting the scale of the impact, he said: “From their point of view, in excess of 1 300 flights were affected across their network into Heathrow. That’s just giving you an idea of the nature of this disruption.”
He told the advised travellers to “try all the various lines of communication provided by your airline”.
“Even if a person may not fly back into London Heathrow, any of the airports in the metropolitan area that can accommodate those aircraft may be used. There’s always a possibility of using alternative airdromes or semi-facilities and then bussing or coaching passengers to their final destination.”
He said that Heathrow, and not Gatwick, was the main gateway for Barbados-UK travel. “I would say both Gatwick and Heathrow – or Heathrow more so than Gatwick – are significant ports of entry and exit for Barbados.” (CLM)
