Disruption at Heathrow could take as much as four days to sort out, a travel expert has predicted.
The airport has closed today following a fire at a nearby electrical substation; emergency services were called to put out the flames and 150 people have been evacuated from nearby homes.
On Newstalk Breakfast, travel expert Eoghan Corry said some flights have already been diverted to Irish airports.
“The key to this is they made the call early, they were going to close the airport for the whole day,” he said.
“That means about 900 flights will be affected; from a passenger point of view, there were about 120 aircraft in the sky at the time the call was made.
“So, they had to divert elsewhere; Amsterdam, Manchester, Glasgow and Shannon got quite a few of them - people flying back from Orlando, are in beautiful County Clare instead.”
Due to a fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport, Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage.
To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23h59 on 21 March.
Passengers are advised not to travel to the airport… pic.twitter.com/7SWNJP8ojd
— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) March 21, 2025
Mr Corry added that the impact on Irish airports will be significant, given how many Irish people transit through Heathrow.
“[There are] 17 rotations to and from Dublin Airport today, a couple from Shannon and Cork, they are going to be affected,” he said.
“There are about 5,500 passengers on those; 11 Aer Lingus and six British airways.
“The problem with Heathrow is it’s a different sort of airport; about 40% of the Aer Lingus passengers, maybe a bit more at this time of year, are not stopping in Heathrow.
“They’re flying to Heathrow to get to somewhere else; nowhere else has the capacity to handle that volume of traffic to a hub airport - it’s Europe’s largest hub airport.
“It’ll take three, four days to sort all of this out.”
Passenger Update - 7am
All flights scheduled between Dublin Airport and London Heathrow up until at least mid-afternoon today (Friday) have been cancelled following the closure of @HeathrowAirport due to a power outage.
A total of 34 flights were scheduled between Dublin… pic.twitter.com/HiTNHeHhhm
— Dublin Airport (@DublinAirport) March 21, 2025
Ryanair has organised eight ‘rescue flights’ for passengers who can no longer travel to Heathrow; four will fly today to Stansted and a further four will leave on Saturday.
Main image: Split of the fire at Heathrow and passengers waiting to leave. Pictures by: Alamy.com
