Giant headaches for travelers and airlines around the world today and no doubt for many days to come as London’s Heathrow Airport closed completely after a power outage caused by a nearby electrical substation that shut down power at the airport.
Heathrow initially announced it would be closed throughout Friday, March 21, but has since announced that it is restarting flights with a priority on “repatriation and relocation of aircraft.”
As you may imagine, a lot of travel plans are a mess.
More than 1000 flights to and from Heathrow – and to and from other airports around the world – have been canceled – so far – leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers affected.
As always, if you’re scheduled to fly to, from or through Heathrow or, really pretty much any European airport (many Heathrow-bound flights were diverted elsewhere), be sure to check with your airline for the latest news. And, if your schedule is at all flexible, consider taking the flight change waivers for this incident.
Here are links to the change fee waivers offered by just a few airlines – including, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, and British Airways. Check your airline’s website for the latest “Travel Alerts” to make sure you don’t end up getting stuck at an airport.
IATA Director General, Willie Walsh, clearly not a big fan of Heathrow, is thanking travelers for their patience, but saying that the shutdown “is yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travelers and airlines.”
