DAILY MAIL
Heathrow’s chief executive has apologised to stranded passengers but defended the airport’s response to an ‘unprecedented’ loss of power caused by a substation fire.
Thomas Woldbye admitted the backup generators were never powerful enough to run the airport after the blaze knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes in the early hours of Friday.
He described the fire, which saw 200,000 travellers have their flights to or from Heathrow axed or diverted, ‘as big as it gets for our airport’ and said ‘we cannot guard ourselves 100%’.
The Heathrow boss, whose salary is believed to be around £5million a year, also said that a back-up transformer failed meaning systems had to be closed down so that power supplies could be restructured to restore electricity enough to power what is described as a ‘mid-sized city’.
The west London airport initially announced it would be closed until 11.59pm but later said repatriation flights and a handful of British Airways long-haul flights would resume Friday evening.
It is expected to run a full schedule on Saturday.
Metropolitan Police have confirmed the fire ‘is believed to be non-suspicious’ while London Fire Brigade said its investigation will focus on the ‘electrical distribution equipment’.
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