Several arriving and departing flights between cities across Canada and London’s Heathrow Airport were cancelled after an overnight fire caused a power outage and forced the British airport to close Friday, with further flight disruptions expected to last for days.
As of early Friday, Toronto’s Pearson airport listed at least five scheduled arriving flights from Heathrow as cancelled, as well as two departing flights. Airports in Vancouver and Montreal also listed multiple cancelled flights.
Those flights were among at least 1,300 to and from Heathrow that were affected by the closure and either diverted or cancelled, according to flight tracking service FlightRadar 24.
Heathrow said Thursday that a fire at an electrical substation that supplies power to the airport caused the outage. The London Fire Brigade said the fire was contained but firefighters would remain on scene throughout Friday.
Heathrow said it didn’t know when power would be restored and it expected the disruption to last for days. It had said earlier that the airport was not expected to reopen until Saturday.
The closure disrupted the travel plans of about 200,000 people who were expected to travel through the airport on Friday.
Air Canada said Friday that six of its flights on Thursday were diverted mid-air while a seventh was cancelled before departing. Those flights included some from routes through Toronto, Montreal and Calgary.
The airline said it had cancelled 16 flights in total, including return flights from London, and it was waiting on more information from Heathrow about scheduled flights for Friday evening.
Air Canada said it rerouted some customers to other European gateways and was helping passengers bound for London to change their travel plans.
Police in London said there was no indication of foul play in the fire, but counterterrorism detectives were leading the investigation that shut down the airport.
A spokesperson for U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there must be a “rigorous investigation” into how single fire could shut down Europe’s busiest travel hub.
Heathrow was Europe’s busiest airport last year, with 83.6 million passengers travelling through it.
