Flight disruption in NI to continue 'into weekend'

Airports on the island of Ireland have warned their passengers could continue to face disruption into the weekend following the closure of Heathrow Airport in London on Friday.

At least 1,351 flights to and from UK's busiest airport have been cancelled, after a fire at a nearby electrical substation that supplies it with power.

Steve Frazer, the managing director of City of Derry Airport, said that while he hopes that flights to Heathrow will resume as soon as the airport reopens, "for those going onwards there could be delays for days and cancellations".

Meanwhile a spokesperson for Dublin Airport, which saw all flights to and from Heathrow cancelled on Friday, said that "further disruption to flights between Dublin Airport and Heathrow over the coming days is possible".

Six flights to and from Heathrow were cancelled at City of Derry Airport on Friday, 14 at Belfast City Airport, and 34 at Dublin Airport.

City of Derry and Belfast City Airports have advised passengers due to fly to Heathrow on Friday not to travel to the airports and to contact their airlines for further updates.

In total 70 flights between Ireland and Heathrow have been affected by the fire, with further cancellations at Shannon, Cork and Knock airports.

Belfast International Airport, which does not operate flights to Heathrow, has said it is so far operating as normal.

The London Fire Brigade said a transformer at the electricity substation in Hayes that supplies Heathrow with power was alight but the fire is now "under control".

However a Heathrow spokesperson said its terminals had to be shut as they "do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored".

Travel journalist Simon Calder has told the BBC that he believes this is the first time London Heathrow has completely shut down since 2010.

The 2010 Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption sent a huge ash plume several kilometres into the atmosphere, grounding thousands of flights across Europe, including in Northern Ireland.

Steve Frazer, from City of Derry Airport said "several hundred" passengers due to be travelling through he airport had been disrupted.

"Quite significant disruption. Thankfully all other flights to the UK are operating as normal."

He said the airport would "wait to see what further statements there are from Heathrow on tomorrow's services".

"We'd be hopeful that the emergency preparedness at Heathrow will get them up and running and we'd expect for those short-haul flights to be the first ones to start operating normally from Heathrow.

"For long-haul, the onward travel there's going to be further disruption right into the weekend we're sure."

Nick, a passenger from Belfast was due to fly to Tokyo on Saturday via Heathrow.

He told the BBC's Nolan show that his flight has so far been delayed with "no further updates".

He said that he has "no idea" what he is going to do.

"It's hard to get in contact with British Airways, they're not answering their phones," he said.

"We've been told don't travel to Heathrow until further notice. Our flight is in the morning, it's early in the morning.

"I don't really know what to do, I'm sure they're working to try and untangle this mess but it's definitely going to have a knock-on impact."

Graeme McQueen, the media relations manager at the Dublin Airport Authority, told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that the disruption is likely to last a few days.

"I think if you can get onto your airline, discuss it with them, whether you can maybe move to one of the other airports in London because it seems very likely that the knock-on impact will carry on for a number of days on this," he said.

He added that other flights are not affected by the delays, and everything is moving well but there could be some knock-on effect later due to flights being diverted.

Ryanair have announced eight "rescue flights" between Dublin and London to help accommodate passengers impacted by the closure of Heathrow.

In a post on social media, the Irish airline said it would run four extra flights between Dublin and Stansted on Friday, two each way, and a further four on Saturday.

Data published earlier this year by the consultancy OAG suggests Dublin-Heathrow is the second busiest international air route in Europe.

It had 2.35 million seats available in 2024, just behind Rome Fiumicino to Madrid.

Shannon Airport in County Clare said it facilitated several diverted flights originally scheduled to land at Heathrow on Friday morning, including flights from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark.

A man on a flight from Atlanta told RTE he was meant to be going to India via Heathrow.

"This is my first time in Ireland," he said.

"I'm not sure how many hours we are going to be here, probably until the end of today."

Another said he didn't have "a clue" what he was going to do.

"All I know is I'm supposed to get on a bus and go to a hotel and I'm stranded in Ireland."

A woman described the situation as "not great".

"Lot of uncertainty, finally we found out that we can go to hotels... we've been waiting in the cold so that was very difficult," she said.

One man said he felt British Airways had "been quite good in trying to mange the situation".

"Hopefully I'll be returning to Heathrow as soon as possible."