Heathrow latest: Internal review launched alongside government investigation - as airport boss faces 'laughing stock' claims

We're pausing our live coverage of disruption at Heathrow Airport for the day.

Here's everything you need to know:

• Heathrow was in full operation on Saturday, having been shut over a loss of power for 16 hours on Friday – but some passengers continued to face disruption;

• Passengers have been warned cancellations and delays will likely last through the rest of the weekend at least;

• The government ordered an urgent investigation into the power outage, with the energy secretary saying it is "determined to properly understand what happened and what lessons need to be learned";

• Heathrow announced it would be launching an internal review aimed at finding “potential learnings” from the incident, led by Ruth Kelly, former transport secretary and an independent member of the airport’s board;

• British Airways - Heathrow's biggest airline – said 90% of its scheduled flights on Saturday went ahead and added it expected a “near-full schedule” on Sunday.

While investigations and reviews have been announced to look at the big picture after Heathrow's major disruption, we're still hearing individual stories from affected passengers.

One such story is that of two friends who have had to pay up to £700 for a new flight that will no longer get them to Cambodia in time for the start of a wedding.

Farah Rafeeq, 24, was due to travel with Singapore Airlines yesterday with Niken Wulan, 32, to another friend's wedding, but will now miss part of the ceremony.

They have found an alternative flight from Gatwick Airport with Turkish Airlines and Bangkok Airways that will get them to Cambodia for Sunday afternoon.

"The last few hours have been nightmarish because it is one of our closest friends' wedding and we have to travel for at least 20 hours to get there," said Farah.

"We had to pay double the amount, between £600 and £700, for the new flight, and we had planned this trip for months and had hotels booked and are flying to Southeast Asia after the wedding.

"We are missing the morning ceremony but at least we can make it for the reception."

The photos coming from Heathrow look very different to those from yesterday, with most flights now going ahead as planned. 

Passengers have been seen smiling and walking calmly to their gate.

Without context, you perhaps wouldn't know that the airport had been shut for 16 hours after a fire knocked out its power supply.

Here are the latest pictures from Terminal 2...

Virgin Atlantic has provided its second update of the day, saying its operation has "fully stabilised" after a "significant impact" to its schedule over the past two days.

"We are still working to ensure all those impacted can complete their journeys as quickly as possible and we expect to run our full flying schedule on Sunday 23 March," it added.

This morning, the airline said it was planning to run a "near full schedule with limited cancellations" throughout Saturday.

"We're incredibly sorry for any disruption to our customers' journeys," the airline said in that statement.

British Airways (BA) says 90% of its scheduled flights today have gone ahead. 

In a statement on X, Heathrow's biggest airline said "the vast majority of our customers were able to get to where they needed to be despite the very challenging circumstances going into the start of the day".

"As things stand, we're anticipating being able to run a near-full schedule on Sunday and would therefore ask customers to come to the airport as normal unless we get in touch to tell them otherwise," it said.

The airline added it was "really grateful to our customers for bearing with us over the past couple of days, even though many of them have had their travel plans unacceptably cancelled or disrupted" and thanked its employees for working "so hard to support customers and help get our operation back on track".

By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire, business and economics reporter

Every year Heathrow handles nearly £200bn worth of cargo which breaks down to goods priced at £543m travelling through every day, according to the airport.

Top exports from the airport are salmon, books and medicine, while items most commonly imported through the hub are vegetables, flowers and compounds found in medicine, plastics and perfume.

Nearly half (48%) of all UK air cargo was processed through Heathrow in 2023, meaning around 0.13% of the UK's annual cargo was due to be handled today.

The broader economy cost

Researchers at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) calculated the economic impacts of the airport and estimated in 2021 the value of trade it contributed would reach £204bn by 2025.

It would contribute £4.7bn to the economy, it forecast, meaning a daily contribution of £12.88m, a figure that could be lost by the airport's shutdown.

The financial loss could be in the region of hundreds of millions of pounds, according to the founder of Endau Analytics, an aviation industry advisory firm.

The fire at the electrical substation which caused Heathrow’s mass disruption is all but put out, and the airport is running as normal again – but the impact of yesterday’s carnage is still being felt.

Some passengers who are still stranded abroad have been speaking to us about their struggles, while experts investigate how a piece of critical national infrastructure like Heathrow was brought to a halt so easily.

Our correspondent Adele Robinson has been exploring the aftermath of the incident.

Heathrow Airport has announced it will launch an internal review after it was forced to close for around 16 hours yesterday due to a fire at a nearby electrical substation.

Its chairman Lord Paul Deighton said in a statement: "Closing the airport yesterday had significant impacts for our passengers, our customers, our colleagues and the country. 

"Heathrow regrets the disruption this caused. We hope that all those affected understand that the decision was made in order to prioritise the safety of our passengers and colleagues.

"We are committed to finding any potential learnings from this unprecedented incident."

He said he had tasked Ruth Kelly, former transport secretary and an independent member of Heathrow's board, to undertake a review.

"The Kelly Review will analyse all of the relevant material concerning the robustness and execution of Heathrow’s crisis management plans, the airport’s response during the incident and how the airport recovered the operation with the objective of identifying any improvements that could be made to our future resilience," he added.

By passenger traffic, Heathrow Airport is the world's fifth-busiest airport.

Here are the other airports that make up the top five, as well as how many passengers they welcomed last year:

1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport - 108,067,766
2. Dubai International Airport - 92,300,000
3. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport - 87,817,864
4. Tokyo Haneda Airport - 85,000,000
5. Heathrow Airport - 83,860,000

Lloyd McBratney was flying from Kuwait to Heathrow with his girlfriend when their flight "suddenly U-turned without any explanation" around two hours after taking off.

The captain then informed them of the Heathrow fire and that they would be returning to Kuwait.

Mr McBratney told us he was asleep at the time of the announcement and woke up to "quite a bit of confusion" and "panic".

"Obviously no one had any signal, any Wi-Fi, so no one knew what was happening on the ground at Heathrow," he added.

He said they were booked into an airport hotel once they landed back in Kuwait and told they would be contacted when another flight became available.

That flight came at 3.45am the following morning.

Describing the scene at Heathrow when he returned, he said it was "slightly more panicky than usual," adding baggage claim was "a bit of carnage" because so many flights had been diverted.

"We were lucky that we went back to Kuwait and then did the full journey into Heathrow, so our cargo stayed on the plane," he explained.

"There was quite a bit of panic, a bit of frustration. But I think overall a lot of people were just happy to be on the ground in Heathrow."