On March 20, a fire at the electricity substation in Hayes, west London, led to the temporary shutdown of Heathrow airport, impacting over 200,000 passengers and resulting in over 1,000 flight cancellations. National Grid has initiated a comprehensive review and enhancement of their safety protocols following the incident. The company supports recommendations from an NESO report for improved cross-sector resilience and coordination. Criticism arose regarding airport management's response, particularly towards CEO Thomas Woldbye for his late-night decisions during the crisis, as highlighted by transport secretary Heidi Alexander.
The electricity substation fire on 20 March caused chaos at Heathrow airport, which had to shut, affecting more than 200,000 passengers around the world. Europe's busiest airport had more than 1,000 flights cancelled on the Friday after the fire at the substation in Hayes, west London.
National Grid has a comprehensive asset inspection and maintenance programme in place, and we have taken further action since the fire. This includes an end-to-end review of our oil sampling process and results, further enhancement of fire risk assessments at all operational sites and re-testing the resilience of substations that serve strategic infrastructure.
There are important lessons to be learnt about cross-sector resilience and the need for increased coordination, and we look forward to working with government, regulators and industry partners to take these recommendations forward.
The UK's transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said she would struggle to sleep if she had been running Heathrow airport, highlighting the criticism aimed at the airport's leadership during the crisis.
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