The airport had enough energy, says National Grid

Heathrow Airport had enough energy to remain open on Friday, after the center of London spent most of the day closed due to a fire in a nearby electrical substation, according to Great Britain National grid.

Heathrow – most busy airport in Europe – closed Last week after a fire broke out in a nearby electric substation that supplies it with energy.

In comments First reported by the Financial TimesThe National Grid CEO, John Pettigrew, said that although the substation in question had been damaged by the “unprecedented” fire, two others supplying energy to Heathrow had been operating as usual throughout the day.

“There was no lack of substations capacity,” he said. “Each substation individually can provide sufficient power to Heathrow.”

National Grid, a company that lies on the stock market, has the high voltage electricity transmission network in England and Wales. The firm confirmed Pettigrew’s comments with CNBC by email on Monday.

A Heathrow spokesman argued, however, that it would have been impossible for Heathrow to operate uninterrupted after the fire last week.

“As the executive director of the National Network, John Pettigrew pointed out, has never seen a transformative failure like this in his 30 years in the industry,” they said in comments sent by email on Monday. “It was required that hundreds of critical systems throughout the airport will take over safely and then restart securely and systematically. Given the size and operational complexity of Heathrow, restart the operations safely after an interruption of this magnitude was a significant challenge.”

Talking to the BBC On Saturday, Heathrow’s CEO, Thomas Woldbye, defended the airport’s response to what he described as an “major incident.”

“We have other substations, but changing them takes time,” he said. “The situation was not created at Heathrow airport, it was created outside the airport and we had to deal with the consequences.”

Heathrow has ordered an internal probe at closing and its crisis management plan, while the United Kingdom government has commissioned his own research In the incident.

More than 1,300 flights had been scheduled to take off or get to Heathrow on Friday, According to the Reuters news agency. More than 120 They were already in the air When Heathrow closed he was diverted to other airports or returned to his departure city. The interruption is widely expected to Airline costs millions of dollars.

As the situation was developed on Friday, European travel and leisure actions saw a wide sale. British Airways owner IAG throw around 1.9% of its value, while Lufthansa lost 1.7%and Easyjet It dropped almost 1%. Many regional airline shares ended the lowest negotiation session, despite recovering from deeper losses seen above in the session.

On Monday, travel and leisure actions in Europe were quoted around 0.4% higher, with IAG 0.9% and Lufthansa winning 0.3% at 1:20 pm in London.

In a statement on Friday, the International Association of Air Transport (IATA), a commercial body that represents 340 airlines that collectively represent 80% of the world air traffic, criticized Heathrow’s response to the fire of the substation.

“This is another case that Heathrow decides both travelers and airlines,” said Iata Director Willie Walsh. “How is that critical infrastructure, of national and global importance, depends totally on a single energy source without an alternative? If that is the case, as it seems, then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.”

Walsh added that the incident also raised questions about who should assume the costs of caring for interrupted travelers.

“We must find a fairer assignment of passenger attention costs that the airlines alone collecting the tab when infrastructure fails,” he said.

Stephen Rooney, a specialist in tourism economy at Oxford Economics, estimated in a note on Friday that the closure would translate to £ 4.5 million ($ 5.82 million) in the lost tourist income for the United Kingdom, while Jonathan Owens, principal teacher in operations and supply chain management at the business school of the University of Salford, told CNBC, that the economic impact would be massive. ” Massive “”. “”

“The costs associated with the deviation of flights to alternative airports are significant, both in terms of financial implications and logistics challenges,” he said by email.

“The deviant flights to other airports would need to cover additional fuel, air traffic control services and airport rates … It is very likely that passengers affected by misventures of flights or cancellations seek compensation due to hotel accommodation, meals and taxis, which increase the cost of airlines.”