Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye has purchased a louder phone after sleeping through critical alerts during a major power outage that forced the airport to close on March 21. His mobile was on silent mode during the incident, which disrupted more than 270,000 passenger journeys.
When asked at the Airlines 2025 event in Westminster whether he had acquired a louder phone since the incident, Woldbye responded: «Oh, absolutely. And more.»
The power outage
A fire at a nearby electrical substation on the night of March 20 triggered the power failure. Heathrow suspended all flight operations until approximately 6 pm the following day. The incident exposed critical vulnerabilities in the airport's emergency communication systems.
An inquiry led by former transport secretary Ruth Kelly found that Woldbye's phone had entered silent mode «without him being aware.» The CEO described himself as «personally devastated» by what he called a «technical glitch.»
Systemic failures identified
Woldbye emphasized that critical infrastructure should not depend on a single individual. He stated: «nothing in this world should be depending on me alone» and noted that «all the right people were there to take the right decisions.» He stressed that businesses «need to be able to trust our utilities» and that Britain is «not in a country where everybody needs a back-up.»
A report by the National Energy System Operator revealed major failures by National Grid. Woldbye cited the findings: «The Neso (National Energy System Operator) report made it very, very clear there were major failures on the part of National Grid and they should have been fixed. We should not have been in that situation in the first place.»
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
