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Heathrow closure raises concern over contingency plans

Experts say that the closure of Heathrow Airport in Britain will affect the global aviation network for days and cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. They also question why there was no better contingency plan at the hub.

The experts were shocked at the magnitude of the power outage. It was unprecedented since the Icelandic Ash Cloud of 2010. They tried to estimate how much it would cost and the extent of its repercussions. A fire in a nearby substation knocked out both the main power and backup power at the airport.

Eurocontrol reports that Heathrow handles around 1,300 flights per day. The fire, which broke out shortly after midnight on Thursday (2300 GMT), forced planes to divert, forcing them to land at airports in Britain and Europe. Many long-haul flights were simply redirected to their original point of departure.

Paul Charles, travel consultant, estimated that the cost of the disruption could be around 20 million pounds ($26 millions) per day. However, there is no guarantee Heathrow Airport will reopen Saturday due to the vulnerability of its power supply.

"A backup should be failsafe if the core system is affected." Heathrow, a crucial part of the UK infrastructure, should have failsafe systems.

Ed Miliband, Energy Minister, said that the fire prevented the backup power system from working. Engineers were now working on deploying a third backup mechanism. The government is also working to determine "what lessons, if any" it can teach about our infrastructure.

This closure will have a global impact that will last for days, leaving passengers stranded.

The carefully choreographed network of airlines depends on planes and crews arriving at certain locations at particular times. Dozens will be forced to reconfigure their network to quickly move planes and crews.

BACK-UP POWER?

The impact of the closure will last several days, even if the airport is opened by Friday. Once aircraft are grounded, the crews and customers are trapped there until the crews are able to take the legally mandated rest period.

"And if they don't return, then they can't make the subsequent flights, so we will get cancellations over the next few days."

A few minutes delay can cause a day's schedule to be thrown off and delays in other parts.

Experts in this case are wondering why Heathrow didn't have more backup power units on-site that they could bring to restart electricity faster.

"I don't recall a critical infrastructure being shut down for a minimum of one day due to a fire." Tony Cox is an international risk consultant.

It is not the first time that the aviation sector in Britain has been affected by a major outage.

According to an independent report by the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), an outage of Britain’s air traffic system NATS could cost more than 100 million pounds ($129) in 2023. This raises concerns about the stability and reliability of the system.

Heathrow's outage will likely raise similar alarms, and lead to widespread public scrutiny. This is especially true if the outage continues past Friday.

Strickland continued, "Who pays the bill? It's still to be determined because it will be an intense and complex discussion between the airports, airlines, electricity providers, insurance firms, and of course nobody wants to take responsibility for it if they can avoid it." $1 = 0.7730 pounds (Reporting from Joanna Plucinska in London, Andrew MacAskill and Dan Catchpole in Seattle, Tim Hepher, in Paris, Alison Williams, in editing)

(source: Reuters)