The outbreak of a big fire on Thursday evening at a power station in the Hayes region, west of London, caused a comprehensive power outage at Heathrow Airport, one of the most crowded European airports, and led to its entire closure until midnight on Friday.
The fire, which firefighters described as “greatly visible”, requested the intervention of about 70 firefighters and was controlled after about nine hours of intense efforts, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
According to the British Aviation Authority, the five airport facilities were to witness more than 1350 upcoming flights and leave on Friday, to about 80 destinations around the world.
Hitro passes through about 230,000 passengers per day, and serves more than 83 million passengers annually, making this closure an unprecedented global operational disaster, according to the Guardian newspaper.
Air navigation disruption
The closure of the airport caused an unprecedented chaos in the European and global aviation sector, where hundreds of flights were converted into alternative airports such as Gatwick and Shannon.
Turkish Airlines also announced the cancellation of all its flights to Heathrow on Friday, while British Airways expressed concern about “great repercussions” on its operations and customers.
The affected companies included the International Airlines Group (IG), whose share decreased by 2.7%, and the shares of Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Izi Jet fell between 1.1%and 2.3%.
Direct economic repercussions on European stock exchanges
European stocks led by the travel and entertainment sector decreased, as the sector’s sub -index decreased by 2.1%, while the broader Stoxx 600 index lost 0.5%. This decline reflects the increasing fears of the failure of global supply and trade chains, especially in light of the escalation of geopolitical tensions and commercial wars launched by US President Donald Trump.
According to aviation consultant Philip Patrores-Miss, airport losses and airlines will definitely exceed 50 million pounds (65 million dollars). Fears of infrastructure at the airport were exacerbated, with increasing questions about how one sub -power station can stop the country’s largest airports.
Energy Minister Ed Miliband confirmed that the government will do its best to restore energy, but he admitted that what happened was revealing the fragility of the emergency system.
Emergency plans
The head of the British Parliamentary Transport Committee, Ruth Kadbury, described what happened as an indication of a dangerous dependence on sufficiently insured infrastructure. She said in a radio interview: “There are clear questions that must be asked, especially as we are talking about an airport based on one energy source.”
Meanwhile, the Director General of the International Air Transport Federation (IATA) criticized the airport administration, saying: “If this is their emergency plan, it is clearly unsuccessful.”
A technical crisis that turns into an economic crisis
The fire turned into a small power station within hours into a real economic crisis, which affected the markets, airlines and passengers, and revealed a weakness in an infrastructure that was supposed to be the most secure.
In light of the increasing economic and geopolitical fluctuations globally, such events appear as an additional incentive to pressure global growth and confidence in institutions.
At a time when Europe is seeking to revive its economy through motivational plans, as happened in Germany recently, this incident comes to remember everyone that the solid infrastructure and effective emergency plans are not an option, but rather a national and economic necessity that cannot be postponed, according to the Guardian.
