Authorities and airlines all want answers following last Friday’s outage 

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has announced that it will review the rules around “resilience”, following last Friday’s outage at Heathrow that resulted in 1,300 cancelled flights and 250,000 passengers impacted across the world. 

The authority said that this will take place as part of its review into Heathrow, before the next price control period. In addition, the authority said it will support the National Energy System Operator’s review along with Heathrow’s own investigation. 

The review comes following criticism from the Government, the public and the wider aviation sector of the airport’s handling of the outage.  

John Pettigrew, Chief Executive of National Grid, said that there was enough power for Heathrow to stay open during the entire period, pointing to the existence of two other substations, that in his belief, could have supplied the airport with all the power it needed. 

While the incident will likely be branded as “force majeure”, meaning that airlines are not likely to pay compensation to passengers, there is still other potential costs that could mount for airlines and suppliers. 

In one scenario, airlines and suppliers could face costs of at least £20 million for a day of halted operations according to Paul Charles, a travel expert. This figure would include expenses for passengers, crew accommodation, additional transport along with costs for the aircraft themselves. 

Likewise, another alternative scenario by the investment bank, Jefferies, has said that the compensations for delays could knock 1% to 3% off the profit of IAG, the parent company that owns British Airways and Aer Lingus, both of whom were heavily affected by the outage. 

Media outlets have been reporting in the last few days, that a body representing 90 airlines is considering whether to take Heathrow to court if there is not an adequate settlement between the airport and airlines.