Each of the fourth million passengers whose trip plan was destroyed by the sudden closure of Hitro Airport on Friday simply wanted to reach their tickets. There was no good way to learn because of a fire in a power post that had reduced power to Europe’s busiest airport.
For 30,000 cruel passengers or on night flights to the west of London, it was a statement from the pilot who says the aircraft would be transported to a corner of a foreign airport: probably Riciavik, perhaps Cairo. Even worse, perhaps: after four hours of flying to London, a quick rotation as a plane returned to its starting point, both in Delhi and in New York. Back to a square
The other 100,000 people never went beyond the square. These were the people who booked Hitro on the flight. Many of them had begun their trip to the airport in the small Friday hours, just to receive a brutal message: “We are really sorry that your future flight has been canceled on Friday 21 March 2025.” Happiness and excitement were crushed in a moment.
The equal number of passengers formed a foreign legion scattered at airports around the world. Some of them returned from holidays or business trips home. Some other visitors abroad were from England. Maybe a few people were happy. If I was a British Airways traveler from Singapore and re -booked three days later, I might have enjoyed the airline’s commitment to prepare a hotel room and meals for a long time. But the vast majority were somewhere from the spectrum from despair to distress.
Beyond personal stories of discomfort, airlines are chasing. The financial blow to the lost income, the cost of care, and the cost of recovering aircraft from different locations where Friday morning on the ground, I estimate, conservatively estimates £ 100m. More than half of this loss will be sustained by British Airways. Long -term, BA will gain a fame even if the last melting is beyond its control.
For British Airways, the transfer of passengers is an essential part of the business composition. Hitro Airport is competing with key continental poles: Amsterdam, Paris CDG and Frankfurt, where champagne Kork was emerging on Friday night after another major decline in England. If the British flagship airport gained the celebration (more), then travelers who choose how to enter Athens to Atlanta will choose another route.
When BA suspended its “middle chair” in Club Europe to release more seats for field travelers, you can say that things are really bad. The last time it happened? When Recovering NATS Air Control Control In August Bank Holiday in 2023.
Once again, England looks a bit of laughter stock. Everything else, and I start a t -shirt of the journey: Choose between “Shannon, March 21, 2025” and “24 hours in Gatwick, August 2023”. There is no gap in the system and once again the passenger pays the price.
Simon Calder, also as a man who pays his own way, has written about traveling to The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he examines a major issue of travel – and what does this mean to you.
