Wed, 23 Jul 2025

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 Heathrow boss 'frustrated' at being asleep during fire

Thomas Woldbye said it wasn't normally the way he acted as a power outage disrupted 1,300 flights.

* Heathrow's boss Thomas Woldbye said he was "frustrated" that he slept through emergency phone calls during a fire in March, which led to the airport's closure and 1,300 flight cancellations.
* He admitted that his mobile phone had gone into "silent mode", preventing him from receiving important notifications.
* A review found that Woldbye missed two emergency notifications and "several" phone calls on the night of the fire.
* The power outage disrupted flights for 270,000 passengers and is expected to cost "millions".
* Heathrow's pre-tax profit fell by 37.2% to £203m in the first six months of 2025.
* An investigation found that a known fault at an electrical substation caused the fire, which was owned by National Grid and had been aware of the problem since 2018.
* Heathrow is considering legal action against National Grid for its role in the power outage.
* The airport's results showed a 1.9% rise in revenues to £1.7bn, but highlighted "clear failings" by National Grid that resulted in losses for both Heathrow and airlines.
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