After a fire caused a power outage at Heathrow airport in Britain, flights resumed late on Friday.
The closure of Europe’s busiest airport caused chaos for travelers worldwide as many were stranded and flights were diverted.
Despite the challenges, Heathrow’s teams worked hard to reopen the airport, which was originally scheduled to handle over 1,300 flights on Friday.
Limited flights were operating to relocate aircraft and bring planes back to London.
“Tomorrow morning, we expect to be back in full operation, to 100% operation as a normal day.
“What I’d like to do is to apologise to the many people who have had their travel affected … we are very sorry about all the inconvenience,” Heathrow Airport chief executive, Thomas Woldbye said.
According to the police, after an initial assessment they were not treating the incident as suspicious, although enquiries remained ongoing.
London Fire Brigade said its investigations would focus on the electrical distribution equipment.
The closure not only caused misery for travellers but provoked anger from airlines, which questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail.
The industry is now facing the prospect of a financial hit costing tens of millions of pounds, and a likely fight over who should pay.
Woldbye said back-up systems and procedures had worked as they should.
“This power supply is a bit of a weak point. But of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them,” he added.
