Thousands of Irish passengers affected by Heathrow closure

James Cox

All flights to and from Dublin, Shannon, Cork and Knock airports to London Heathrow have been cancelled today, affecting thousands of Irish passengers.

More than 1,300 flights to and from Heathrow Airport will be disrupted on Friday due to the closure of the airport following a fire at a nearby electrical substation.

Thousands of homes have been left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation caught fire in west London.

Online flight tracking service FlightRadar24 said the closure would affect at least 1,351 flights to and from Heathrow.

It said 120 flights to the airport were in the air when the closure was announced.

Heathrow is the UK’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.

Graeme McQueen from Dublin and Cork airport operatore DAA said Heathrow's closure is having a big impact.

He told Newstalk: "Normally by this time on a Friday we'd have had about 10 flights between Dublin and Heathrow. Obviously they haven't been able to take off or land today.

"In total today, we'd have had 34 planes travelling between the two airports. It looks like they're not going to take off or land today."

Ryanair is running 'rescue' flights for those affected by Heathrow's closure.

The airline has added up to eight flights between Dublin and London Stansted, with four today and four tomorrow.

The flights can be booked on the website from 9.30am.

Shannon Airport in Co Clare confirmed it had accepted six diverted flights from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark.