The first flights out of Heathrow last night as services resumed after an 18-hour closure were BA services to Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Riyad and Singapore. British Airways says 85pc of its flights schedule will operate today.
It wil take several days to clear the backlog of passengers, but early reports suggest many of yesterday’s cancelled passengers will opt for refunds rather than complete their journey.
One flight from Dublin to Heathrow today is cancelled, Heathrow BA835@13.05 & inbound BA834
Dublin airport’ saw 17 rotations to Heathrow cancelled, 11 from Aer Lngus and six from British Airways, as well as Heathrow services from Belfast (7 rotation), Cork (4 rotations), Shannon (4 rotations), Derry (3 rotations) and Knock (one rotation).
Flights from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark diverted to Shannon. Some flights from the US were turning around mid-air and returning to their point of departure. There were 120 Heathrow-bound aircraft in the air at the time of the announcement. Amsterdam took seven diversions, Frankfurt, Gatwick, Paris, Shannon and Washington six each, and Glasgow, Madrid, Manchester, and New York JFK five each.
The airlines that were due to arrive at Heathrow Airport on Friday by capacity:
- British Airways: 67,962
- Virgin Atlantic: 9,058
- Lufthansa: 3,780
- American Airlines: 5,744
- Aer Lingus: 3,484
- United Airlines: 3,673
- SAS: 2,520
- Swiss: 2,000
- Eurowings: 1,906
- Delta Air Lines: 2,687
- Other 67 airlines: 9,790
- Total: 145,836
Heathrow shared: “Our teams have worked tirelessly since the incident to ensure a speedy recovery. We’re pleased to say we’re now safely able to begin some flights later today.
“Our first flights will be repatriation flights and relocating aircraft. Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has advised you to do so.
“We will now work with the airlines on repatriating the passengers who were diverted to other airports in Europe. We hope to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly.
“Our priority remains the safety of our passengers and those working at the airport. As the busiest airport in Europe, Heathrow uses as much energy as a small city, therefore getting back to a full and safe operation takes time. We apologise for the inconvenience caused by this incident.”
Donal Moriarty, COO of Aer Lingus shared: “The options we’ve provided to our customers are firstly refund, secondly, we’ve allowed them to change their flight without a change fee applying, and thirdly, if they have an absolute need, uh imminent need uh, to travel, uh, we we’re looking to reaccommodate them. Interestingly, about 1,000 of our customers have already applied for refunds and we’ve processed nearly half of those at this point”.
