As Heathrow starts to get back to normal, the UK Government has ordered a probe into the power outage which caused mass disruption.
The outage was caused by a single fire at an electricity substation.
Travellers are still being warned to expect delays and cancellations today - but the airport has re-opened.
UK correspondent Enda Brady says over 1300 flights were cancelled - creating global travel chaos.
"It's a national embarrassment. The Government has moved very, very quickly to call an urgent investigation, so we'll wait and see what comes out of that."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The UK government has ordered an urgent investigation to the
fire and power outage that shut down Heathtory Airport on Friday.
The outage and disruption has been called a huge embarrassment.
To talk us through the impact. UK correspondent in the
Brady is with me now.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Good morning, Good morning, Francesca, great to speak to you again.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Nice to talk to you too. What has been the
reaction by the government and authorities around the closed closure
of on Friday.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I think people are shocked and embarrassed that this has happened.
I mean, where was the backup, Where was Plan B
planed C? There was nothing in place and the end
result is he throws shuts for twenty four hours. Thirteen
hundred and fifty one flights did not fly on Friday,
one hundred more or council today. It's a national embarrassment.
(00:58):
The government has moved very very quickly now to call
an urgent investigation. So we'll wait and see what comes
out of that. But ultimately right now so the knock
on effect this will roll into the middle of next week.
Because there are so many planes and crews out of
place all over the world, and the airlines will be
picking up a huge, huge tab for this. Three hundred
(01:20):
thousand passengers affected, and a lot of these people will
be in hotels tonight picking up dinners and drinks and
everything else and taxis and the airlines will be liable
for that.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Would you have thought a place like Heathrow would have
an emergency backup, would have an emergency backup? Is this
a huge issue for them?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
It's beyond embarrassing. I mean, I've always thought of Heathrow
as a small town in West London. It is that big.
There are so many people work there, so many airlines,
so many offices, and the guts of two hundred thousand
people every single day transiting through. It's Europe's busiest airport.
(02:00):
And I think if one good thing comes out of this,
perhaps the government will go and put in some diesel
generators around the airport so that if anything like this
ever happens again, it will not result in that number
of flights being canceled. It is so so embarrassing, but look,
(02:20):
that's where we are at the moment. There's no great
leadership here there's no planning, and I think it's opened
up people's eyes to the lack of kind of intelligence
in so many businesses in the UK.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Right now in the counter tira police and leading an inquiry,
but so fad, there's no indication of anything untoward, right.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yes, so we haven't got to the root cause we
know that the substation caught fire. There was a fire,
a transformer was badly damaged and the fire split into
this kind of cooling oil. Twenty five thousand leaders of
a witch caught fire. Now the suspicion is that, you know,
could this have been done nefariously? Could a foreign government
(03:03):
or foreign agents have been involved, which you know, in
decades ago you would have thought this was like very
fanciful stuff out of a TV drama. But we've seen
a lot of strange things happening on UK streets in
the last decade and a half. So the police are involved,
counter terrorism police in particular, investigating what has gone wrong here,
(03:24):
But they haven't found any smoking gun yet, So it
could be that it was just a lack of investment
or you know, a defective transformer that has just caught light.
But it is extremely strange that this has happened at
the one substation that happens to provide all of the
power for London Heat Throw Airport. So a lot of
(03:46):
questions have been asked. We'll wait and see what the
police come up with.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You mentioned before that you know this disruption is going
to continue on into the week in so many canceled flights.
Is there any indication of what the cost of this
disruption will be.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think when it all shakes down, it will be
tens of millions of NZ dollars. It's going to be very,
very expensive, and I think privately, while they haven't said
it publicly, the bosses of the airlines will be absolutely livid.
I mean, I have friends who are CEOs of airlines
in this country. I've not spoken to them today, but
(04:23):
I know they've been under huge pressure since COVID to
get back into the black, to start making money and
start making profits, and a day like this could wipe
out months and months of hard work. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
No, I agree, it's going to be It's going to
be sort of a You're going to have your tourists
who want compensation, then you're going to have the airlines,
and you're going it's just going to go on and
on and on and down, and it's going to be
a quick result to this.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
No, there's no quick results, but you know what, I
feel really really sorry for the people who were wanting
to come here. We need tourists. Britain is really kind
of on the brink of a recession. Now we need
money coming in. And then you think of all the
people who've been working so hard the last five or
six months saving for holidays. I've got a huge trip
(05:12):
coming up the end of May. I'm heading to South
America to run a race in Peru. And had that
happened on Friday, that had I been traveling Friday, that
would have just wiped out my entinery completely. And I've
been training for this race for eighteen months. So think
of all the people who were heading off on honeymoons,
family events, weddings, funerals, you know, baptisms. Yeah, two hundred
(05:38):
thousand people affected in one day.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Crazy. Thank you so much for your time, though it
was in the Brady There For more from the Sunday
session with friend Jessica Rudken, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from nine am Sunday, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The UK government has ordered an urgent investigation to the
fire and power outage that shut down Heathtory Airport on Friday.
The outage and disruption has been called a huge embarrassment.
To talk us through the impact. UK correspondent in the
Brady is with me now.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Good morning, Good morning, Francesca, great to speak to you again.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Nice to talk to you too. What has been the
reaction by the government and authorities around the closed closure
of on Friday.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I think people are shocked and embarrassed that this has happened.
I mean, where was the backup, Where was Plan B
planed C? There was nothing in place and the end
result is he throws shuts for twenty four hours. Thirteen
hundred and fifty one flights did not fly on Friday,
one hundred more or council today. It's a national embarrassment.
(00:58):
The government has moved very very quickly now to call
an urgent investigation. So we'll wait and see what comes
out of that. But ultimately right now so the knock
on effect this will roll into the middle of next week.
Because there are so many planes and crews out of
place all over the world, and the airlines will be
picking up a huge, huge tab for this. Three hundred
(01:20):
thousand passengers affected, and a lot of these people will
be in hotels tonight picking up dinners and drinks and
everything else and taxis and the airlines will be liable
for that.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Would you have thought a place like Heathrow would have
an emergency backup, would have an emergency backup? Is this
a huge issue for them?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
It's beyond embarrassing. I mean, I've always thought of Heathrow
as a small town in West London. It is that big.
There are so many people work there, so many airlines,
so many offices, and the guts of two hundred thousand
people every single day transiting through. It's Europe's busiest airport.
(02:00):
And I think if one good thing comes out of this,
perhaps the government will go and put in some diesel
generators around the airport so that if anything like this
ever happens again, it will not result in that number
of flights being canceled. It is so so embarrassing, but look,
(02:20):
that's where we are at the moment. There's no great
leadership here there's no planning, and I think it's opened
up people's eyes to the lack of kind of intelligence
in so many businesses in the UK.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Right now in the counter tira police and leading an inquiry,
but so fad, there's no indication of anything untoward, right.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yes, so we haven't got to the root cause we
know that the substation caught fire. There was a fire,
a transformer was badly damaged and the fire split into
this kind of cooling oil. Twenty five thousand leaders of
a witch caught fire. Now the suspicion is that, you know,
could this have been done nefariously? Could a foreign government
(03:03):
or foreign agents have been involved, which you know, in
decades ago you would have thought this was like very
fanciful stuff out of a TV drama. But we've seen
a lot of strange things happening on UK streets in
the last decade and a half. So the police are involved,
counter terrorism police in particular, investigating what has gone wrong here,
(03:24):
But they haven't found any smoking gun yet, So it
could be that it was just a lack of investment
or you know, a defective transformer that has just caught light.
But it is extremely strange that this has happened at
the one substation that happens to provide all of the
power for London Heat Throw Airport. So a lot of
(03:46):
questions have been asked. We'll wait and see what the
police come up with.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You mentioned before that you know this disruption is going
to continue on into the week in so many canceled flights.
Is there any indication of what the cost of this
disruption will be.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I think when it all shakes down, it will be
tens of millions of NZ dollars. It's going to be very,
very expensive, and I think privately, while they haven't said
it publicly, the bosses of the airlines will be absolutely livid.
I mean, I have friends who are CEOs of airlines
in this country. I've not spoken to them today, but
(04:23):
I know they've been under huge pressure since COVID to
get back into the black, to start making money and
start making profits, and a day like this could wipe
out months and months of hard work. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
No, I agree, it's going to be It's going to
be sort of a You're going to have your tourists
who want compensation, then you're going to have the airlines,
and you're going it's just going to go on and
on and on and down, and it's going to be
a quick result to this.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
No, there's no quick results, but you know what, I
feel really really sorry for the people who were wanting
to come here. We need tourists. Britain is really kind
of on the brink of a recession. Now we need
money coming in. And then you think of all the
people who've been working so hard the last five or
six months saving for holidays. I've got a huge trip
(05:12):
coming up the end of May. I'm heading to South
America to run a race in Peru. And had that
happened on Friday, that had I been traveling Friday, that
would have just wiped out my entinery completely. And I've
been training for this race for eighteen months. So think
of all the people who were heading off on honeymoons,
family events, weddings, funerals, you know, baptisms. Yeah, two hundred
(05:38):
thousand people affected in one day.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Crazy. Thank you so much for your time, though it
was in the Brady There For more from the Sunday
session with friend Jessica Rudken, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from nine am Sunday, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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