Delta issues waiver for travelers affected by London Heathrow outage, closure

“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23:59 on 21 March,” the airport said. “Passengers are advised not to travel to the airport and should contact their airline for further information.”

London Heathrow is the fourth-busiest airport in the world, behind Atlanta, Dubai and Dallas/Fort Worth, according to Airports Council International’s ranking based on 2023 passenger counts.

Atlanta-based Delta said Friday it had suspended its flights to London Heathrow due to the power outage and closure of the airport.

It had several flights that departed for Heathrow late Thursday that were diverted to Amsterdam, including a flight from Atlanta. Delta joint venture partner carrier KLM has a hub in Amsterdam to connect passengers to other destinations.

Delta said it worked to reaccommodate those passengers, while London-bound travelers could travel from Amsterdam to London by train and get reimbursement for the expense.

Delta’s waiver allows travelers more flexibility to adjust their travel plans. In an indication of how lasting the impact could be, the Delta waiver is for customers who had flights booked for Friday, Saturday or Sunday to, from or through London Heathrow.

Those travelers can change their flights to another date a few days later without paying a higher fare, subject to certain limitations.

Delta typically has three flights a day from London Heathrow to Atlanta, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic each have one flight a day from Heathrow to Atlanta.

Early Friday morning, there were three Friday flights from Heathrow to Atlanta canceled, while two Thursday flights from Atlanta to Heathrow were canceled, according to FlightAware.com.

British Airways is advising its customers because of travel from Heathrow on Friday “not to travel to the airport until further notice.”

“We are closely monitoring the situation and will provide more information as soon as we have further details,” British Airways said.

Virgin Atlantic also told its customers scheduled for flights to or from London Heathrow, “please do not proceed to your departure airport at this time.”

Hartsfield-Jackson, which is the world’s busiest airport, had a power outage in December 2017 that paralyzed the airport for 11 hours and stranded travelers around the world.

That Hartsfield-Jackson outage was caused by a fire that damaged an underground electrical facility along with substations that served the airport and the backup electrical system, according to Georgia Power. The fire occurred in a tunnel that runs along the path of the underground Plane Train tunnel.

That Atlanta airport power outage caused chaos and confusion for passengers at the airport.

It prompted a study of airport power outages by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, with a report released in 2023 showing that power outages have affected most of the airports the GAO surveyed.