Heathrow Airport is shut until Friday night

[Ozgirl76]

And my husband is due to fly home to Australia on Friday evening. I predict chaos.
Airport is saying that people should not travel to Heathrow and should contact their airlines.

That's a really scary thought. But is sadly not beyond the realms of possibility.

It’s such a pain for everyone, we were diverted on a flight last year, adverse weather. That was one expensive taxi journey.

So sorry for everyone affected, really feel for you.

I think it's highly likely to be Russia, I don't think that's a stretch at all.

I think there are issues on Heathrow Express and Elizabeth Line near the airport. Doubt it's going to impact you if you aren't going near Heathrow.

It's not very "cold" anymore to be fair.

Hand hot? More than lukewarm anyway!

BA WiFi is free (and available on short haul too, I think), if you are a member of their executive club avios points scheme.

it is definitely a bit hit and miss though so not worth paying for really

They’ve just said on the radio that although they have power contingencies this is unprecedented, so they decided to close until midnight in order to give airlines certainty so they can plan for the whole day today. I guess it also keeps people away from trying to get there (all roads in are closed). Then they can work on the contingency and getting things started.

I know when our local largish substation went down they had to do a lot of workarounds to get power for everyone, and we had reduced power (reduced voltage IIRC) for two weeks, so I can only imagine how hard it would be to service Heathrow plus a big residential area.

In not an IT expert but this doesn't surprise me in the least. Surely it would be prohibitively expensive if even possible to set up a system to automatically cope with every unknown problem of unknown duration at every airport in the world

How can you rebook when no one knows when the schedule will be back to normal

Maybe there are valid critisims of BA but I really don't think not being able to magic up solutions is open of them

while I wouldn't rule it out I wonder about whether it's a good idea to start this kind of rumour. Many of us are depressed enough as it is.

@PatriciaHolm

With regards to Stansted, yes it is the designated security airport for UK airspace so any plane that has a deemed security threat that will be diverted there. So yes they try and keep it down the list for diversions where possible

I know Stansted has it’s possible uses but I’ve never heard of it being pushed down any list because of security uses.

it was definitely on our list of possible diversions for operations into Heathrow, and was sometimes flight planned by us or considered as an option in flight by us because it might be a better option than LHR or LGW on days where there was a very strong southerly wind because of Stansted’s north east/south west runway alignment.

The main reason we didn’t tend to really want to use Stansted as routine was that is was busy and we had no staff there, there was no more to it than that.

As a Heathrow flight path dweller, I can tell you that the skies are very peaceful here this morning. It’s nice but also a bit eerie, depending on which way the planes are landing, you can usually see four planes lined up in a row ready for landing so it’s a big difference.

This and the ship collision...

Are you really saying something doesn’t exist because you personally haven’t experienced it, in the face of loads of people saying yes it does?
like a toddler.
here you go, have a read of the BA website. www.britishairways.com/content/information/entertainment/wifi-on-board

You'd think but I was at a quiz recently where this was a question and most people said that but the answer was an American airport, Atlanta I think

I am absolutely not a conspiracy theorist but my first thought was Russia too.

What are the odds on this sort of thing happening at such a critical piece of the infrastructure? Ed Milliband is saying it is unprecedented, this is not a small incident.

Don’t forget there were attacks on the French rail network last year too.

Disruption and confusion is their MO.

I’ll be glad if it’s proven not to connected to Russia, but I will not be surprised if it is shown to have connections to them.

😂😂whod have thought that things outside of your personal experience might be things

I don’t think it’s starting a rumour, anyone with common sense will be able to put 2 and 2 together and see that it’s a possibility.

I’m definitely depressed about that, also sorry for anyone involved (DP is flying today, not to LHR but his flight is already delayed) and surprised to learn about WiFi on planes - I’ve only done cheap short haul recently so I honestly didn’t know it was a thing!

They just said on the news that Dubai was the busiest airport last year, Heathrow second. Of course that depends on what they mean by “busy”, is it number of passengers of number of planes, etc.

Second busiest airport in Europe according to the news (I guess Schipol is the first?)

europe's busiest airport is what i just heard

<<stamps foot>> we Need to know the busiest airport

Well, it isn't Heathrow today

Google says Atlanta measured by passenger traffic.

I don't think they will tell us if it is.

My brother works at Heathrow. He says it's weird without planes and there are lots of phonecalls going on. He gets involved in where the planes are going as if it's an airport they don't use very often there are calculations to do to see if the plane can land.