The boss of National Grid has pushed back on claims that a power shortage caused last Friday’s major disruption at Heathrow Airport. Chief Executive John Pettigrew told the Financial Times that despite a fire damaging one substation, two others were still operational and capable of powering the entire airport.
The incident brought Heathrow to a standstill for 18 hours, grounding thousands of flights and stranding passengers across the globe. Millions of pounds worth of cargo shipments were also disrupted.
The fire, which started in a transformer in Hayes near Heathrow around midnight, was described by Pettigrew as a “unique event”—the first of its kind in his 30-year career. While the airport had backup generators to power essential systems like runway lights, switching to alternative substations took longer than expected.
Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye admitted the outage wasn’t due to a power shortage but rather the complexity of restarting the airport’s vast network of critical systems—from fuelling stations to escalators. “There are risks of certain sizes we cannot fully prepare for,” he said.
Despite efforts to defend the response, some airline leaders are furious. Willie Walsh, former British Airways boss and now head of IATA, called it a clear planning failure and demanded answers about Heathrow’s ability to handle such crises.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said confidence in airport management was a matter for Heathrow’s board. Meanwhile, the government has ordered a six-week investigation, led by the National Energy System Operator, to assess the outage and Heathrow’s preparedness.
Power grid expert Simon Gallagher raised concerns over the airport’s vulnerability, noting that nearby data centres have full power redundancy. “It’s fair to ask why Heathrow wasn’t similarly protected,” he said.
