AER Lingus will operate flights to and from Heathrow as normal on Saturday after a huge blaze shut down the transport hub.
The first flight landed at the airport after 6pm on Friday, about 18 hours after it was closed following an inferno at Hayes electrical substation last night.
Aer Lingus were forced to cancel a number of flights today[/caption]
Irish airline Aer Lingus has confirmed that it will operate a normal schedule from Saturday, March 22.
And Heathrow bosses announced earlier today that all flights will be resuming as normal tomorrow.
Passengers around the world faced major disruptions as Heathrow shut down today, with more than 1,000 flights in and out of Europe’s busiest airport cancelled.
Several flights were forced to divert mid-air after the airport was closed overnight.
All flights between Irish airports and Heathrow were cancelled because of the power outage.
In their latest update to customers, Aer Lingus said: “London Heathrow Airport has confirmed it will re-open fully tomorrow and, as a result, Aer Lingus is planning to operate its normal schedule to / from London Heathrow tomorrow, Saturday March 22.
“In light of London Heathrow Airport’s closure today, all of Aer Lingus’ services to and from London Heathrow were cancelled.
“Aer Lingus communicated directly with impacted customers, and our customer care teams are currently working hard to provide them with the options available to them, including applying for refunds, changing flights without a change fee applying.
“If a customer has an imminent requirement to travel, engaging them directly with our customer care team to arrange re-accommodation where possible.”
A total of 34 Irish flights were scheduled between Dublin and Heathrow today, all of which have been cancelled.
A further 14 flights from Belfast and eight from Shannon were also impacted.
Cork, Derry and Knock West airports are also affected by the disruptions.
While Ryanair don’t operate directly to Heathrow, the airline assisted in up to eight rescue flights between Dublin and London Stansted.
Four extra flights were added between Dublin and Stansted on Friday, with four more planned for Saturday to help in transporting passengers impacted by cancellations.
Ryanair bosses said: “Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today added up to eight rescue flights between Dublin and London Stansted, 4 on Friday and 4 on Saturday to rescue passengers affected by today’s Heathrow closure.
“Ryanair will operate four extra flights between Dublin and Stansted on Friday afternoon as well as four extra flights on Saturday morning.
British Airways Chairman and CEO Sean Doyle warned passengers disruption could last days while teams work tirelessly to resolve the issue.
BA is the biggest operator at Heathrow, with 51 per cent of flights, including 341 scheduled inbound flights.
But despite the carnage, Heathrow Airport announced in their latest update at just after 4pm it is “safely able to begin some flights later today”.
Heathrow Airport’s boss has also admitted that the backup generators were never powerful enough to run the airport after mass cancellations.
Thomas Woldbye described the blaze which knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes in the early hours of Friday as “as big as it gets for our airport”.
The Chief Executive said: “We have lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city and our backup systems have been working as they should but they are not sized to run the entire airport.”
