Over 1,000 flights, 300,000 passengers affected as fire causes major power cut at Heathrow airport

 The closure of Heathrow rippled through global aviation. The long-haul carrier Emirates in Dubai, which has London as one of its top destinations, cancelled six round-trip flights to Heathrow on Friday alone.

Etihad in neighbouring Abu Dhabi cancelled two round-trip flights, while one flight diverted to Frankfurt, Germany.

Qatar Airways said at least seven scheduled flights were "impacted," with its staff working with passengers.

Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways rerouted two overnight flights to Amsterdam and cancelled at least two daytime flights to Heathrow, according to the flight status page on its website.

Seven United Airlines flights returned to their origin or diverted to other airports and its flights on Friday to Heathrow were cancelled, the airline said.

The FlightAware website showed more cancellations including two from John F. Kennedy International in New York, a Delta Airlines flight and an American Airlines flight.

Other jets were diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland's Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.

The closure of Heathrow forced two Japanese flights that had already departed to return to Tokyo and a third to change its destination, airline officials said.

Japan Airlines said one of its two Heathrow-bound flights on Friday returned to Tokyo's Haneda international airport, and another one diverted to the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

A third flight out of Tokyo, operated by All Nippon Airways, another major Japanese carrier, also returned to Haneda.

Airline officials advised passengers to check the latest flight information for Saturday.

Australian airline Qantas diverted its Singapore-London and Perth-London flights to Paris on Friday and then bused the travellers to London, a spokesperson said.

Customers will be contacted directly if their flight is impacted.

Today, no noisy plane sound, 'the birds are singing'

The noise from Europe's busiest airport is a constant bugbear for those who live nearby, but has temporarily fallen silent.

"Basically living near Heathrow is noisy. There are planes every 90 seconds or so, plus the constant hum of traffic, but you get used to it, to the point of no longer noticing," said James Henderson, who has lived next to Heathrow for over 20 years.

"Today is different. You can hear the birds singing."

Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports for international travel. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5% for the same period last year. January also was the 11th month in a row it averaged over 200,000 passengers a day, with the airport citing transatlantic travel as a key contributor.

Heathrow normally opens for flights at 6am due to nighttime flying restrictions. It said the closure would last until 11:59pm on Friday.

Third runway 

The UK government earlier this year approved building a third runway at the airport to boost the economy and connectivity to the world.

Aviation consultant John Strickland says it will take several days for global airline travel to recover from a daylong closure of Heathrow Airport.

He said: "We're talking about several days' worth of disruption to get the planes recovered and start using them again to move planned and disrupted passengers."

Strickland compared the disruption to "a contained version of 9/11 or, to an extent, the Icelandic volcanic eruption" that shut European airspace in 2010.

"I remembered seeing on those occasions – particularly more so on 9/11 – it happened so quick and then US airspace was closed, they were turning back aircraft and holding planes. That's the parallel I would make.

"Heathrow being such a busy airport and full, there's no kind of wriggle room for getting out of these kind of things."

The London Fire Brigade says the electrical substation blaze closed Heathrow Airport is under control.

LFB Assistant Commissioner Pat Goulbourne says the fire was under control just after 8am.

"This was a very visible and significant incident, and our firefighters worked tirelessly in challenging conditions to bring the fire under control as swiftly as possible," he said. "Thanks to their efforts and a coordinated multi-agency response, we successfully contained the fire and prevented further spread."

Associated Press