Heathrow boss quizzed whether he should remain in role

March 23, 2025

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London-Heathrow Airport (LHR) has said it is gearing up for a second day of full flight scheduling following a fire at an off-site electrical substation that ground operations to a standstill.

On March 22, 2025, the Heathrow CEO, Thomas Woldbye, was quizzed whether he should remain in his role as criticism surrounding the airport’s inability to carry on operating when faced with the power outage.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Woldbye was asked if he thinks he should still be in the job and responded by saying, “no comments to that”.

Prompted to provide more details Woldbye said: “I’ll let others judge that, if they think there’s an issue.”

Heathrow has announced that it will launch an internal review following the 16-hour closure to find “any potential learnings from this unprecedented incident”.

London Fire Brigade

“Closing the airport yesterday had significant impacts for our passengers, our customers, our colleagues and the country. Heathrow regrets the disruption this caused. We hope that all those affected understand that the decision was made in order to prioritize the safety of our passengers and colleagues,” the Heathrow Chairman Lord Paul Deighton said.

The UK government has also said it will begin an investigation into the disruption to “understand what happened and what lessons need to be learned”.

“The loss of power to the Heathrow area has caused major disruption to thousands of people and many businesses. I have today commissioned the National Energy System Operator (NESO) to carry out an investigation into this specific incident and to understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure, both now and in the future,” the Secretary of State for Energy Security, Ed Miliband said.

Despite Heathrow Airport returning to normal scheduling, airlines have warned that passengers could face delays for several days.

Yesterday, Heathrow said that it “welcomed 250,000+ passengers, with punctual departures and security queues under five minutes for nearly all”.

“We’re operating a full schedule again today, with over 1,300 flights planned,” the airport wrote on social media on March 23, 2025.

On March 21, 2025, Heathrow closed for almost a day after a fire broke out at a local electrical substation in the London suburb Hayes.

London Fire Brigade said its crews were called shortly before 23:30, local time, on March 20, 2025, and around 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters responded to the emergency.

“We are deeply sorry for the disruption caused and are continuing to work closely with the Government, Heathrow and the police to understand the cause of the incident,” the National Grid said.