THOUSANDS of passengers remain in limbo after only EIGHT flights left Heathrow Airport due to an “unprecedented” closure.
A handful of British Airways flights were able to depart on Friday evening after a huge inferno at Hayes electrical substation in West London caused the airport to lose power.
Heathrow’s boss apologised on Friday, admitting backup generators were never powerful enough to run the airport as mass cancellations ensued.
Thomas Woldbye described the blaze which knocked out an electricity substation as “as big as it gets for our airport”.
Thousands were left stranded after the chaotic scenes on Friday saw hundreds of flights cancelled.
However, a handful of flights managed to touch down in Heathrow Airport yesterday night.
And a number of flights also managed to get off the ground to depart the airport in what was a major boost after a day of dismay.
Most of those leaving did so after 7pm, while a couple of long haul arrivals were permitted a touch earlier.
British Airways BAW259 flight heading to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was the first flight to get off the ground at Heathrow.
Hours earlier, a British Airways jet touched down just after 6pm, about 18 hours after the substation blaze.
More flights will hopefully be taking off and landing there in the next 24 hours, as the airport says it hopes to run a full service on Saturday.
Heathrow chief Mr Woldbye added: “We expect to be back in full operation (tomorrow), so 100% operation as a normal day.
“(Passengers) should come to the airport as they normally would. There’s no reason to come earlier.”
British Airways, which has a major presence at Heathrow, said it expects to operate around 85 per cent of its scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday.
The airline would usually expect to run nearly 600 departures and arrivals on Saturday but it is understood cancellations will be made, where possible, to high-frequency routes.
A spokesman said: “We are planning to operate as many flights as possible to and from Heathrow on Saturday, but to recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex.
“We expect around 85% of our Saturday Heathrow schedule to run, but it is likely that all travelling customers will experience delays as we continue to navigate the challenges posed by Friday’s power outage at the airport.”
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said.
BA is the biggest operator at Heathrow, with 51 per cent of flights, including 341 scheduled inbound flights.
The fire at the electricity substation which caused the damage “is believed to be non-suspicious” according to the Met Police and London Fire Brigade.
The major power outage has seen more than 2,000 aircraft grounded and 145,000 passengers disrupted.
Images from last night showed Heathrow looking eerily empty but still functioning to some capacity.
Since the shutdown began, passengers have been redirected to airports across the country, including Manchester, Gatwick and Stansted.
Travellers have also been diverted to Germany, France, and Ireland.
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