Heathrow boss slept until 6.45am on day of power shutdown due to his phone being on silent

On the day of the unprecedented closure of Heathrow due to a power failure, the airport boss slept soundly until 6.45am.

The mobile phone of CEO Thomas Woldbye was on silent, the Kelly Review into the shutdown has revealed.

The decision to close Europe’s busiest airport on Friday 21 March as a result of a fire at a electricity substation feeding Heathrow led to 1,400 flight cancellations. More than 200,000 passengers had their flights grounded, and 120 planes that were already in the air heading for Heathrow diverted to other airports

Mr Woldbye was repeatedly called in the early hours of the morning. The first, at 12.21am, was a protocol alarm call known as F24 to alert him to the incident.

Then Javier Echave – the chief operating operator, who made the decision to close the airport for the whole of Friday – repeatedly tried to call his boss.

The review by Ruth Kelly, a non-executive director of Heathrow, reveals: “Although his phone was on his bedside table, Mr Woldbye reported that it did not alert him to the F24 alarms or to Mr Echave’s other calls because the phone had gone into a silent mode, without him being aware it had done so and he was asleep at the time.

“Mr Woldbye first became aware of the incident at approximately 6.45am on 21 March, and received a debrief from Mr Echave.

“Although Mr Woldbye was therefore not involved in the decision to suspend operations, it was within Mr Echave’s authority to make this decision, being the named individual on the CAA operating licence for the Airport.

“Neither Mr Woldbye nor Mr Echave considered the decision to stop operations would have changed had Mr Woldbye been involved.”

After the report’s publication, the Heathrow CEO said: “The board commissioned the Kelly Review to assess our preparedness and scrutinise our response. The evidence confirms that Heathrow made the right decisions on the day and successfully put safety first without a single injury reported.

“Investments in energy resilience have been and will continue to be part of our strategy, and our response to this unprecedented incident was effective due to well-drilled procedures. The review’s recommendations will further strengthen our resilience, and our team is committed to implementing them in full.”

The Kelly Review also reveals security staff in Terminal 2 had to rely on the torch function on their phones. “Immediate interim adjustments were made after the incident to contingency plans, including issuing all security team members with battery powered torches,” the review says.

Airlines have been critical of the decision not to open parts of Heathrow earlier in the day. The report reveals that only 1,637 passengers flew in or out on three arrivals and eight departures – only 0.8 per cent of the normal daily throughput.

The Independent has invited British Airways and Virgin Atlantic to respond.

Read Simon Calder’s timeline of the Heathrow shutdown on 21 March 2025