The chief executive of National Grid has insisted that Heathrow Airport had “enough power” from remaining substations, despite Friday’s major shutdown which caused significant disruption for passengers and airlines.
John Pettigrew stated that two substations remained operational throughout the crisis and were “always available for the distribution network companies and Heathrow to take power”. His comments come after a fire at an electricity substation in Hayes on Thursday evening led to widespread power failures, grounding flights and causing chaos at the UK’s busiest airport.
National grid defends resilience of Heathrow’s power supply
In his first public remarks on the issue, Mr Pettigrew told the Financial Times:
“There was no lack of capacity from the substations. Each substation individually can provide enough power to Heathrow.”
He emphasised that while losing a substation is a rare event, Heathrow still had access to two others, maintaining what he described as a “level of resilience”.
However, despite this, the airport was unable to resume normal operations until Friday evening. Heathrow’s chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, explained that a back-up transformer also failed during the outage, meaning critical systems had to be shut down and restarted systematically to ensure safety.
A Heathrow spokesperson reinforced this point, stating:
“As the National Grid’s chief executive, John Pettigrew, noted, he has never seen a transformer failure like this in his 30 years in the industry. His view confirms that this was an unprecedented incident and that it would not have been possible for Heathrow to operate uninterrupted.”
Long-standing concerns over Heathrow’s power infrastructure
Concerns about Heathrow’s power infrastructure are not new. A report by consultancy firm Jacobs, published in 2014, identified a “key weakness” in the airport’s electricity supply, particularly the “main transmission line connections to the airport”.
The document warned that outages could lead to significant disruption to passenger, baggage, and aircraft handling operations, and in extreme cases, could require the closure of affected terminals or even the entire airport.
Despite this, the report concluded that Heathrow’s provision for on-site power generation and backup measures appeared “to be adequate” to withstand and recover from power interruptions.
The latest outage has raised fresh questions about whether those measures remain sufficient given the scale and complexity of Heathrow’s operations, with some critics suggesting that more needs to be done to enhance resilience.
Government orders urgent investigation
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has responded to the crisis by ordering the National Energy System Operator (Neso) to “urgently investigate” the power failure. Using powers under the Energy Act, the Government is working alongside Ofgem to formally launch the investigation, with initial findings expected within six weeks.
Counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police initially led the investigation, but have since handed control over to the London Fire Brigade after confirming that the fire was not believed to be suspicious. The investigation will now focus on the electrical distribution equipment and the cause of the failure.
Meanwhile, former Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, an independent member of Heathrow’s board, will lead an internal review of the airport’s crisis management plans and its response to Friday’s outage.
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Heathrow resumes full operations
Following Friday’s shutdown, Heathrow officials worked around the clock to restore operations. A spokesperson for the airport praised the efforts of emergency services and airport staff, stating:
“In line with our airline partners, our objective was to reopen as soon as safely and practically possible after the fire. The emergency services and hundreds of airport colleagues worked tirelessly throughout Friday to ensure the safe reopening of the airport.”
By Saturday, Heathrow was operating a full schedule of over 2,500 flights, serving more than 400,000 passengers. British Airways confirmed that it expected to run a “near-full schedule” on Sunday, advising passengers to proceed to the airport as normal unless instructed otherwise.
The airport, which remains Europe’s busiest, handled over 83.9 million passengers in 2024. However, Friday’s disruption left approximately 200,000 travellers stranded, sparking calls for further investment in critical infrastructure to prevent similar incidents in the future.
As the investigation unfolds, both National Grid and Heathrow Airport will face scrutiny over whether more could have been done to prevent the chaos. While officials maintain that the power supply was sufficient, the failure of Heathrow’s internal systems raises broader concerns about the resilience of vital infrastructure in one of the world’s most important transport hubs.
