After a quarter of a million passengers canceled or distracted their flights by closing London Heathrow, the CEO of the airport stands before questions from MPs.
Thomas Woldbye appears before the Transport Select Committee today (April 2) to explain the order of events that led to more than 1400 flights being derived or canceled.
Late on the evening of Thursday, March 20, a fire broke out in a transformer in an electric substation in Hayes, north of Heathrow. In the early hours of Friday morning, March 21, Heathrow announced that it would close until at least midnight – although later that evening allowed a few flights to leave.
While airlines tried to get their schedules back on track, the chaos went on for days.
The independent Calculate the total airline cost at Heathrow as £ 100m in lost income and passenger care expenses. Last week, Luis Gallego, CEO of BA’s parent company, IAG, confirmed that his firm alone had suffered losses of “dozens of millions of pounds”.
The carriers are represented during the hearing by Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee (HAOC) CEO Nigel Wicking.
Heathrow, and the many businesses that support its activities, especially in West London, have also lost millions. The greater damage to the British economy – in terms of incoming tourism and reputation damage – is incalculable.
The emotional impact for the 250,000-plus passengers whose flights were canceled or derived were great-with some people missing important family events, including weddings and funerals.
The Cross Parties Committee is chaired by Ruth Cadbury, MP of the Labor for the West London constituency of Brentford and Isleworth.
Before the hearing, the committee said it would ask:
- How does it appear that the important piece of infrastructure had a single point of failure?
- Or Heathrow Airport Ltd. fully realize the risks of this type of system failure?
- Whether this type of incident is considered so unlikely that the investment in additional resilience is considered unnecessary?
- How Heathrow coordinated with other airports in the UK and Europe to accommodate the flights?
- How did the business get involved with dozens of airlines?
- How customers and stakeholders are compensated?
The transport Select Committee will also quiz Alice Delahunt, president of the British electricity transfer at National Grid, and Eliane Algaard, operations director at Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, who run the local network.
