The near-24 hour shut down of Heathrow Airport on 21 March forced
around 1,400 flights to be cancelled or diverted and over 200,000
passengers to be displaced. The Transport Committee will now
examine whether it could have all been dealt with differently,
and what lessons can be learnt.
MPs will question CEO Thomas Woldbye on the operational factors
and decisions that led to Europe's biggest airport closing for as
long as it did, and how the vital piece of infrastructure
appeared to have a single point of failure.
There will be questions on whether alternative power sources
could have been used earlier, after the National Grid suggested
two other substations could have powered the entire airport.
Instead, a number of diesel back-up generators fuelled only
safety-critical functions. The National Grid will be represented
at the session by Alice Delahunty, President of its UK
electricity transmission operations. Also giving evidence will be
Eliane Algaard, Operations Director of the company responsible
for the substation that caught fire, Scottish and Southern
Electricity Networks.
The cross-party Committee will ask whether Heathrow Airport Ltd
fully realised the risks of this type of system failure
happening, and whether this type of incident was deemed so
unlikely to happen that investing in additional resilience was
deemed unnecessary.
The Committee will also be interested to hear how Heathrow
coordinated with other airports in the UK and Europe to
accommodate diverted flights, how the company engaged with dozens
of airlines that were affected, and how customers and
stakeholders will be compensated. Also on the panel will be Nigel
Wicking of the Heathrow Airline Operators Committee which
represents airlines that operate at the airport.
Witnesses from 09:15
- Thomas Woldbye, Chief Executive, Heathrow Airport
- Alice Delahunty, President - UK Electricity Transmission,
National Grid
- Eliane Algaard, Operations Director of its southern
Distribution network, Scottish & Southern Electricity
Networks
- Nigel Wicking, Chief Executive, Heathrow Airline Operators
Committee Limited
