Heathrow Airport blackout exposes weak spot in its power supplies

London Heathrow’s unprecedented blackout on Friday has put the airport’s reliance on potentially vulnerable infrastructure into focus, at a time when the biggest UK hub is lobbying for an ambitious expansion plan.

A fire late Thursday at a nearby electrical substation cut off the power supply to Heathrow, bringing flights to a standstill for almost all of Friday. While backup systems kicked in, they only allow the hub to land some aircraft and evacuate passengers, but not to support full operations. Only by late on Friday did a few flights resume, mainly to repatriate dislocated passengers.

Smoke from a fire at North Hyde Electricity Substation near London Heathrow Airport in London on March 21.
The public blowback to the outage was swift, with Willie Walsh, the former chief executive officer of British Airways parent IAG SA and now IATA director, saying it’s “yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travelers and airlines.”
Walsh said it’s a “clear planning failure by the airport” if critical national infrastructure relies on one energy source without an alternative.

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At the same time, given that Europe’s busiest airport uses as much energy as a small city, keeping enough power capacity in reserve to meet such demand is complicated. Heathrow hasn’t suffered an outage on that scale in at least two decades, with previous disruptions typically caused by strikes, weather, or air-traffic control computer glitches.

“Lots of people would say it seems like a greater level of redundancy could have been built in, but ultimately you have to pay for that,” said Robin Preece, a lecturer in future power systems at the University of Manchester. “It’s a question of how much you’re willing to pay for situations