Some travelers headed to the wedding, while some travelers headed to the funeral. Others had set out on a Disneyland holiday in Paris, going on business trips to the UK, returning home from their honeymoon in Italy, or moving to Australia.
Instead, on Friday they sat on the airport floor, boarded a bus and checked into the hotel as tens of thousands of passengers were stuck.
“It’s a crazy situation,” said Roksanna Baghelzadeh, who had missed a Persian New Year celebration with his family in London as a flight from New York didn’t take off.
Some flights rerouted mid-unit forces in Madrid or Montreal. Others were forced to turn back completely. The American school tripper was held in London. The musicians were worried they would miss out on their performance. Some travelers took detours patrol all over Europe to reach their families. Others had to give up on their big plans.
“I was trying to suggest,” said Kevin Black, a bass player who tours Europe with his band, whose girlfriend was supposed to be involved. However, her flight turned around and took her to Nashville.
“Black will be one of the bridges overlooking the rivers of Paris,” he said of his planned proposals for travelling in Europe. Now he said, “It’s probably in the Falls of Tennessee. What can I do?”
Many passengers were unable to reach them as the airline struggled to accommodate the enormous amount of requests. The flights for the next few days were booked quickly, and the only remaining flights had exorbitant prices, the traveler said.
There was also a halt as many Americans began spring break and confused family planning.
“Instead of fish and chips, we have a child crying in the house,” said David Mahler, 47, who was flying from London to London with his wife and 11-year-old twin boys as the flight turned across Colorado. They were now heading home for spring break looking for other options, he said, but international flights were becoming more expensive. “We’re kind of stuck,” he said.
Gatwick stood in a long line at the help desk, where passengers from London’s second-largest airport received many flights heading to Heathrow. Heathrow, usually one of the busiest airports in the world, has been dumped. The drop-off zone at Terminal 3 was quiet, with the runway and airline counters empty.
The teacher was about to go home to Dallas and walked through the terminal when the bus she was on was not allowed to enter Heathrow. Another traveler, Monel Bailey, tried to walk along the highway to the terminal with his bag when his Uber was stopped by a police officer blocking the route to the terminal. It was a “confusing scene,” Bailey said.
The blackout forced authorities to close the airport for most of Friday after a fire broke out in an electric current near Heathrow. Some flights were scheduled to resume later Friday, but airline officials warned that travel disruption could last for several days.
A glance at Heathrow’s Flight Information Committee on Friday morning gave me a sense of how big the shock wave from the closure would be. Flights from Brunei, India and Vietnam were scheduled to land, and passengers were hoping to fly to dozens of destinations: Miami, Singapore, Tokyo… The list continued.
Rachel Morris was eagerly waiting for her sister to join her for her bridal shower on Saturday, but the flight from London was cancelled. “I’m in ruins,” Morris said. “She is my maid of honor, my best friend, and she planned everything.”
Stephen McCray was stuck in London, where he traveled from Seattle for a book tour for his wife’s debut horror novel.
“We want to go home,” McCray, 36, said. “Our dogs are waiting for us.”
Travelers took them to social media, complaining about the confusion and asking the airline for help. One wrote that he had to withdraw from the Pokemon Go Championship.
“It’s sad to miss that,” said half marathon runner Samira de Brigi, who was planning on flying from Amsterdam for a Reading race west of London on Sunday.
Bugherzadeh posted what she called “the saddest travel vlog of all time” to Tiktok. In it, she sat on the plane, took the first step in her in-flight skincare routine, braided her hair, and didn’t get any trouble while flying.
“It was all pointless,” she said on the phone.
Bagherzadeh, 27, was planning to take the opportunity to have dinner with her grandmother, who traveled from France to the UK. Instead, she sat on the tarmac plane for two hours before disembarking and heading home.
“I cried right away because I wanted to see my mom,” Bugherzadeh said.
Dozens of airlines fly to Heathrow from around 180 cities around the world. Many planes already in the air were forced to detour elsewhere when the airport closed. New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport had the most flights scheduled to arrive at Heathrow on Friday. Some detoured to Manchester in northwest England. To Glasgow. Or in Reykjavik, Iceland.
As many as 290,000 passengers coming and going from Heathrow could be affected by the closure, according to aerial analytics firm Cirium. Flight 669 was scheduled to take off from Heathrow on Friday, Cirium said.
Heathrow said it is a major hub for British Airways and redirects flights to other UK airports wherever possible.
At Rome’s Fiumicino airport, dozens of people lined up at the British Airways counter, including a group of high school students scheduled to return home via Heathrow in Italy in a week.
Amidst the confusion, panic and frustration, some still tried to see the advantage.
Marilyn LeBlanc said she was flying from Boston to Dublin when the pilot announced they were coming back due to a fire at Heathrow. However, because the planes needed to be refueled, they were converted to Canada for fuel.
“So we left Boston on a Thursday night around 7pm and returned at 5am on Friday,” LeBlanc said. “A lovely Sunday drive around the sea!”
The report was provided by Nicholas Yong of Singapore. Jonathan Wolf and Lindsey Chutel of London. Matthew mapped out the big Rome.
