London, March 22
A day after flights were grounded at Europe’s busiest airport Heathrow, operations resumed on Saturday as the first flight landed.
Full service is expected to resume at London's Heathrow Airport on Saturday a day after it was shut down due to an unprecedented loss of power caused by nearby a substation fire.
The shutdown caused inconvenience to as many as 200,000 passengers as at least 1351 inbound and outbound flights were grounded throughout Friday.
Inbound planes were diverted to other airports in Europe after flames ripped through the North Hyde plant in Hayes, west London, on Thursday evening.
Air India had on Friday temporarily suspended its flight operations from Heathrow as the airport announced a closure until March 21 midnight due to the power outage.
“All our flights to and from London Heathrow, including AI111 of this morning, have been cancelled for 21 March. We will update about resumption of operations as soon as we have more information. Flights to London Gatwick remain unaffected,” the statement added.
According to report, the airport's chief executive Thomas Woldbye apologised to stranded passengers and said the disruption was "as big as it gets for our airport" and that it could not guard itself "100%".