Heathrow fire: CEO admits response ‘should have been better’ as costs run to tens of millions
July 26, 2025
A fire at an electricity substation that plunged London Heathrow Airport into chaos in March has cost the operator ‘low tens of millions’ of pounds, Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye has confirmed. He admits the response could have been handled differently.
The Heathrow boss spoke to the BBC this week, in the first interview since the publication of the National Energy System Operator (NESO) report.
NESO found that the root cause was a fault that had been known about for years and not fixed. But it also found that Heathrow’s internal systems structure made the outage longer and more acute than it needed to be.
The overnight blaze at the North Hyde substation knocked out power to key systems, forcing the UK’s busiest airport to shut down for nearly a full day, disrupting the journeys of more than 270,000 passengers.
As the disruption unfolded, Woldbye was asleep with his phone on silent, a detail he now acknowledges as a serious lapse in judgment.
Heathrow fire caused by fault that went unresolved for seven years
The outage began late on 20 March and left Heathrow unable to operate flights until the evening of 21 March. Nearly 1,400 flights were cancelled or delayed, with ripple effects across global aviation networks.
NESO discovered that the fire was caused by moisture penetrating key components, a fault that had been identified at the substation as early as 2018, but was left unaddressed.
“An elevated moisture reading in the bushing had been detected in oil samples taken in July 2018 but mitigating actions appropriate to its severity were not implemented,” the report stated.
🚨BREAKING: COUNTER TERROR POLICE INVESTIGATING HEATHROW SUBSTATION FIRE
— Basil the Great (@Basil_TGMD) March 21, 2025
– Britain is under attack
– We all know who by
Our leaders watch on helplessly pic.twitter.com/DxRcHJaafs
The energy regulator Ofgem has now opened a formal enforcement investigation. Woldbye said Heathrow would wait for the outcome before deciding whether to take legal action against National Grid.
“We are awaiting Ofgem’s report to decide whether we will pursue damages,” he said.
However, Heathrow Airport does not come out of the situation unscathed. According to the NESO report, Heathrow’s private internal network was designed in such a way that if a single one of its three supply points went down, power to critical systems would be lost.
The airport operator did have a plan to deal with such a scenario, which involved reconfiguring internal systems. The NESO report says that this process would take between 10 and 12 hours.
“This was less well-known by those outside the technical team within Heathrow Airport Limited, and it was not known to the energy companies,” it said.
Woldbye: “That will not happen again”
In a rare admission, Woldbye reflected on his absence during the early hours of the crisis.
“I would have liked to see my personal role play out differently,” he said to the BBC. “That is one learning, and that will not happen again.”
It later emerged that Heathrow’s Chief Operating Officer, Javier Echave, had attempted multiple calls during the night, none of which were answered.
Thomas Woldbye expressed his 'deep regret' for being uncontactable during the fire that led to the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights. https://t.co/aXainPWpy8 pic.twitter.com/F72Ha8wLTJ
— Financial Times (@FT) May 28, 2025
Asked if he misjudged the demands of leading one of the world’s busiest airports, Woldbye defended Heathrow’s broader response.
“An organisation like ours has to be able to manage, whether the captain’s on the bridge or not,” he said. “We need to have procedures in place that ensure this company can take the right decisions at the right time, by the right people, no matter what the situation is.”
Heathrow has since agreed with airlines to invest further in improving the physical resilience of airport systems to prevent similar events in future.
Heathrow fire to cost ‘tens of millions’
In a seperate conversation with the PA News agency, Woldbye estimated the fallout from the closure of the airport to cost “in the tens of millions of pounds.”
The impact was evident in Heathrow’s first-half results. Despite serving a record 39.9 million passengers between January and June, pre-tax profits fell by 37% to £203 million, a drop of over £70 million.
Airlines suffered too as a result of the outage, but none moreso than British Airways owner IAG. With 55% of the capacity at Heathrow, mostly from BA but also Aer Lingus, Iberia, Vueling, and LEVEL, the cost of the outage was estimated by IAG to be around £40 million.
No standard regulation mandates Heathrow to compensate airlines for lost revenue or costs, given the power outage is an exceptional event.
However, airlines (and Heathrow) may seek financial recovery via insurance claims, litigation against National Grid, or broader dispute resolution, especially if the outage is deemed preventable.
Heathrow’s third runway proposal is due next week
London Heathrow Airport expects to handle around 84 million passengers over 2025, bringing it close to the limits of its current capacity.
The incident has amplified concerns over Heathrow’s infrastructure limits as the airport prepares to submit a renewed proposal for a third runway by 31 July.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently signalled government support to revive the expansion plan, which had stalled in recent years.
“Heathrow is a very space-constrained airport,” Woldbye said. “We already have two or three times as many passengers per square metre of airport as our competitors in Europe.”
The five-year investment plan also includes a proposed £5 increase in per-passenger charges to help fund upgrades.
In a statement, Heathrow said: “Depending on the Government’s response, we would aim to meet their ambition to secure planning permission in this Parliament and for the runway to be operational by 2035.”
The March shutdown has prompted soul-searching at Heathrow about how it responds to critical infrastructure failures.
While Woldbye insists “the right decisions were taken by the right people,” the episode has underscored the fragility of even the most complex and well-resourced transport systems.
Whether Heathrow can recover both its operational resilience and public confidence will depend not only on investment, but on how it applies the lessons of one extraordinary day in March.
