Heathrow Airport restores full operations

The latest news on the United Kingdom. London's Heathrow Airport resumed full operations on Saturday after a fire at a critical electrical substation triggered a daylong shutdown, disrupting over 1,300 flights and stranding nearly 300,000 travellers.

The incident, deemed non-suspicious by authorities following preliminary investigations into an electrical malfunction, forced global airlines to reroute planes and grapple with cascading delays, while passengers faced exorbitant hotel prices and prolonged waits.

Heathrow deployed hundreds of staff across terminals to manage backlogged crowds and assist stranded travellers, while adding 10,000 seats to Saturday's schedule to accelerate backlog clearance, though British Airways warned of lingering disruptions for days.

Industry leaders criticised the lack of backup power systems, labelling the outage a preventable infrastructure failure, while airlines and Heathrow sparred over liability for mounting costs. For now, it remains to be seen how the situation will unfold.