News / Uncertainty over fallout from Heathrow fire

© Bojan Bokic

Mixed messages are coming out of the cargo community following the suspension of flights to and from Heathrow following a fire at a substation that supplies the London gateway, with some carriers and forwarders believing the cargo sector may have avoided the worst of it.

Power to the UK’s busiest terminal was knocked out as a result of the fire, which broke out a little before 11.30pm last night, with the BBC reporting that while Heathrow did have back-up power for key systems, turning this on “for the whole airport takes time”.

Sources told The Loadstar both passenger and cargo flights had been suspended, with one forwarder noting “it’s going to be painful for air cargo”.

However, in the hours since this story was first published, The Loadstar has heard from multiple forwarders (from SMEs to sources at multinationals) that the impact to cargo may not be as bad as first thought.

A source within one of the larger outfits said that they were not having “the calls we would expect to be having if the fallout from this was looking to stretch on beyond the weekend,” the source adding that for the cargo side of things the impact may not even stretch beyond today.

“No one is running around saying ‘good lord, what are we going to do,” they added.

“And no one is telling anyone shipping from Australia to Heathrow today that the service won’t be happening.”

In part, the decreasing anxiety levels among forwarders appear to be driven by the quantity of goods on airfreight services, “we don’t expect overloads at other airports, diversions sure, but we’re confident the other gateways can handle this, and we are discussing alternative transport modes – thankfully, we’re not in peak season”.

Carriers too are beginning to indicate that the situation will not last beyond the day.

A spokesperson from Lufthansa Cargo told The Loadstar: “Our teams are doing everything they can to minimize delays for our customers. We expect to be able to resume operations during the course of tomorrow, Saturday 22 March, but can not confirm this at the moment. As a result, we currently anticipate a small backlog.”

Despite this, vice president and head of consulting at Rotate, Tim van Leeuwen said the airport’s closure had had a “big impact” on cargo flows, noting that Rotate’s Live Capacity and Air Demand data indicated that more than 10% of European cargo has been directly impacted, with Transatlantic capacity most affected, pointing out that 20% of cargo capacity on the lane is either going to or from Heathrow.

Heathrow confirmed that the airport would be closed until “at least” the end of the day, warning that even if it was able to reopen tomorrow, customers should expect “significant disruption over the coming days”.

However, the gateway has yet to respond to requests for comment from The Loadstar on what this means for its cargo operations, both bellyhold and full freighter.

Several carriers did respond to requests for comment, although a spokesperson for British Airways’ parent company, IAG, gave little detail beyond noting that the team was “working to minimise disruption”.

But a Virgin Atlantic Cargo spokesperson told The Loadstar: “All Virgin arriving and departing flights are cancelled until 9.30pm, with the rest of today’s schedule currently under review.

“If customers have a shipment booked for today, we are still able to accept export cargo to deliver into dnata City East. Our teams are working to rebook shipments, and customers will be able to see new booking details on the Virgin Atlantic Cargo Track and Trace.”

The spokesperson added that the carrier was also still operating ground services, and still open for imports to be collected as normal.

A spokesperson for DHL similarly told The Loadstar that the company was working on contingencies, noting that its Heathrow facilities “remain operational, with business continuity plans activated, and we’re working closely with the airport to action resilience plans and mitigate disruption for customers and their shipments”.

As forwarders and carriers grappled with the situation, BIFA claimed the initial UK press response to the fire indicated that lessons learned during the pandemic and Brexit about the importance of international supply chains had seemingly been forgotten.

It noted: “As expected, most reporting has focused on the immediate impact on flights, terminals, and passengers. Regrettably, cargo has been largely overlooked, and the impact will be significant on both import and export movements.

“Supply chains work based on a consistent flow of goods and this has been severely interrupted – for exports, the immediate concern will be that airline sheds will fill up rapidly and be unable to accept fresh freight deliveries, which will then affect other parties. For imports, freight will not arrive at, or be diverted from, its original final destination.

“For BIFA members, a big concern is that most cargo is carried in the bellyholds of passenger aircraft, and when flights to and from LHR are restored there will be a considerable influx in demand by passengers for seats to continue their journeys. Potentially this will restrict the capacity to move cargo.”

Writing on LinkedIn, founder of Ti Insight, John Manners-Bell echoed BIFA’s sentiment describing the situation as “deeply frustrating,” and pointing to the critical role of the London airport to the UK economy.

Mr Manners-Bell said: “The risk of disruption to this transport node is well known and something that I and many others have been writing about for years.

“Surely the government must have taken an interest in its vulnerability – even if the airport owners didn’t have their own back up plans in place to mitigate risk? A fire at a single power sub-station bringing one of the world’s busiest airports to a complete halt?”

Adding that “someone has been asleep at the wheel,” he suggested that it could in fact “take days for the chaos to be resolved”.

Previous updates:

UPDATED: 11:24 to include DHL comments
UPDATED: 11:41 to include BIFA comments
UPDATED: 12:35 to include views from forwarders and comment from Lufthansa
UPDATED: 12:50 to include the opinion of Ti’s John Manners-Bell