Heathrow Faces Power Supply Concerns Ahead of Outage Shutdown

Nick Wicking, the head of the Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee, recently shared his concerns with the Transport Select Committee about potential weaknesses in the airport’s power system.He raised these issues on March 15 and again on March 19—just before a fire at a substation lead to a complete shutdown on March 21.

Wicking’s alarms were triggered by several incidents of cable theft, one of which had previously knocked out runway lights.

“This situation definitely raised my eyebrows,” he remarked. “I wanted to get a clearer picture of how resilient our airport really is.”

The resulting outage rendered the UK’s busiest airport non-operational for an entire day, leading to meaningful disruptions in flights and passenger services and also chaos in local transportation.

Heathrow’s CEO Thomas Woldbye also addressed MPs, justifying the decision to halt operations as crucial for safety reasons.

“It became evident early on that we couldn’t ensure safe operations at the airport,” Woldbye explained. “Shutting down was necessary; or else, we would have faced thousands of passengers stranded and serious risks to their safety along with traffic jams around Heathrow… it could have turned into a nightmare.”

He further noted that this outage impacted around 65,000 homes and local facilities by disabling traffic signals and other vital infrastructure nearby.