Air chaos in Europe and partial global chaos. Heathrow Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world, was forced to suspend all operations this Friday after a fire at a nearby electrical substation caused a "significant power failure." All flights scheduled for today—1,351, according to the flight tracking website FlightRadar24—have been canceled, triggering a chain reaction of cancellations at other European airports and several diversions to other British and European destinations for international travel. Some 230,000 passengers will be affected. More than fifty flights to and from Spain have also been canceled. In addition, thousands of homes—an estimated 16,000 in western Greater London—have also been affected and are without power.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. local time, a British Airways plane landed at Heathrow, west London, resuming a service that had been interrupted shortly before 2:00 a.m. this Friday due to a general infrastructure blackout caused by a fire at an electrical substation. The second plane landed at 7:10 p.m. This met management's expectations, which had stated earlier this afternoon that it was now ready to "safely restart flights." British Airways, which has its operations base at Heathrow and had 670 operations scheduled for today, has announced that it will prioritize "the repatriation and relocation of aircraft" originating in Europe. In fact, it is expected to be fully operational tomorrow. Air traffic has returned to the runways after almost seventeen hours.