Heathrow has defended its contingency planning after criticism from organisations including Iata following Friday’s all-day closure.
The airport confirmed operations would be halted until midnight after a fire at a local power station caused an outage.
It said it is still waiting for clarity on when it will be able to resume operations and the knock-on effects are expected to last for a number of days.
Iata said the closure was “yet another case of Heathrow letting down travellers and airlines”.
Willie Walsh, Iata director general and former boss of British Airways parent company IAG, said: “We thank those affected for their patience as airlines focus on getting them to their destination as quickly and efficiently as possible.
“This is yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travellers and airlines. And that begs some serious questions. Firstly, how is it that critical infrastructure – of national and global importance – is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative.
“If that is the case – as it seems – then it is a clear planning failure by the airport. And, from that arises the question of who bears the costs of taking care of disrupted travellers.
“We must find a fairer allocation of passenger care costs than airlines alone picking up the tab when infrastructure fails. Until that happens, Heathrow has very little incentive to improve.”
In a statement to the Press Association, Heathrow defended its back-up systems but argued they were not designed to allow the airport to run as normal.
“We have multiple sources of energy into Heathrow. But when a source is interrupted, we have back-up diesel generators and uninterruptible power supplies in place, and they all operated as expected,” the statement said.
“Our back-up systems are safety systems which allow us to land aircraft and evacuate passengers safely, but they are not designed to allow us to run a full operation.
“As the busiest airport in Europe, Heathrow uses as much energy as a small city, therefore it is not possible to have back-up for all the energy we need to run our operation safely.”
The airport added: “We are implementing a process which will allow us to redirect power to the affected areas, but this is a safety critical process which takes time, and maintaining safety remains our priority, so we have taken the decision to close the airport for today.”
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