When thousands of passengers were left stranded at Heathrow last Friday due to a substation fire, it wasn’t just a travel issue, it was a wake-up call. The Heathrow power failure has sparked national concern over how such a critical site could suffer such a debilitating blackout from a single incident. For an airport that handles over 200,000 travellers a day and a significant volume of the UK’s trade goods, the incident has put our infrastructure under the spotlight in a very public way.
The power outage was caused by a blaze in the North Hyde substation, which supplies electricity to the airport and surrounding homes. While Heathrow does have back-up systems and secondary connections, it turns out that the damaged component was a “particularly important bit”, as a National Grid insider told the BBC. And when that went down, the knock-on effect meant delays, grounded flights, and significant economic disruption. The Heathrow power failure has now been described by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as a “clear planning failure”.
The irony is that Heathrow, alongside Gatwick, is one of the only two airports in the UK with formal resilience standards in place. So if this is how one of the best-prepared airports responds to infrastructure failure, what about the rest? Experts like Robin Potter from Chatham House are asking the same question, noting that even regulated airports are still vulnerable to what he calls “a single point of failure.”
The airport has insisted that its diesel generators and uninterruptible power supplies worked as intended. But the switchover to alternative power sources took time, and the systems had to be checked before restarting, which is understandable from a safety perspective. What’s clear, though, is that for all the investment in back-up mechanisms, it was not enough to keep one of the world’s busiest airports operational when disaster struck.
Phil Hewitt of Montel Group believes Heathrow’s reliance on just one local substation is worrying. In his words, “an airport as large and as important as Heathrow should not be vulnerable to a single point of failure.” And it’s not just industry insiders raising red flags. Questions are also being asked in Westminster. The National Infrastructure Commission recommended new resilience standards for critical UK sectors back in 2023. But according to recent reports, those recommendations have been sitting untouched on the government’s desk since October.
The Heathrow power failure also reignites debate around whether private infrastructure operators like Heathrow should be expected to invest in a full secondary power supply. As one Heathrow source pointed out, the cost would be enormous, and the balance between risk and cost isn’t straightforward. Still, the public and political fallout from this event suggests that more robust planning may now be non-negotiable.
For readers interested in how resilience is being tackled across sectors, the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission has outlined proposed reforms on its website, which may soon guide how airports and other key services prepare for future disruptions.
You can read EyeOnLondon’s earlier coverage of infrastructure-related issues, including Greenpeace fined for oil protest claims and survival plans for French households.
For more updates on infrastructure failures and how they affect Londoners, visit EyeOnLondon. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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