Heathrow Airport chief govt apologises for hearth shutdown | EUROtoday

The boss of Heathrow Airport has apologised to the greater than 200,000 passengers whose journeys had been disrupted by its closure final month following a hearth.

Thomas Woldbye supplied his “deepest regrets” including that the “situation was unprecedented”.

Speaking to MPs, he stated he recognised “the considerable inconvenience and concern it caused”.

The airport was shut down for greater than a day in March after a hearth at a close-by electrical substation.

Mr Woldbye stated Heathrow realised “during the early hours” of Friday 21 March that “we were losing power to the airport”.

“In our operations centre you would seen all the red lights go, that the systems were powering down,” he stated. “We had no information as to why.”

“We then had a slightly later stage call from the fire department that the substation was on fire,” he stated.

Heathrow is provided by three substations, however knocking out one induced lack of energy to the airport.

Mr Woldbye stated a 3rd of the airport was powering down and that Terminal 2 was significantly affected. He added that it grew to become “first and foremost a safety situation”.

“We need to make sure, when a crisis happens, that people are safe,” he stated.