Heathrow Airport to close Friday after fire knocks out power to part of London

Heathrow Airport closed due to electrical substation fire, causing power outage and significant travel disruptions in London.

Britain’s Heathrow Airport will be closed on Friday (March 21, 2025) after an electrical substation fire knocked out its power, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers who use one of Europe's biggest travel hubs.

Thousands of homes also lost power and about 150 people had to be evacuated after a transformer within an electrical substation caught fire in west London.

“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, we have no choice but to close Heathrow” for the full day Friday, the airport’s statement said. “We expect significant disruption over the coming days, and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”

It said it will provide an update on its operations when it has more information on restoring power available.

National Rail announced that it was cancelling all trains to and from the airport.

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.

London Fire Brigade said 10 fire engines and around 70 firefighters were on the scene of the fire, which started late Thursday night.