Heathrow Airport fire: London mayor Sadiq Khans begs hotels not to hike prices for stranded passengers

Reports of hotels “profiteering” from the closure of the UK’s largest airport due to a major fire at a nearby electrical substation began to emerge over the course of the morning, with establishments accused of increasing the cost of a room by as much as seven times their standard value.

But the mayor highlighted the generosity shown by one hotel in helping to accommodate the 150 people who were evacuated from their homes in the area of Hayes nearest to the substation.

“The Government is working really closely with us and others to make sure that those who are stranded can return with empty seats on aeroplanes,” said Sir Sadiq, speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service at the London Fire Brigade’s headquarters in Southwark.

“One of the local hotels I’ve heard of opened their doors to the 150 people who were evacuated. I’m not aware about those hotels that are surge-pricing and so forth.

“What I’d hope is, there is a really good London spirit. We all recognise there are thousands and thousands of people who have been inconvenienced. Some people were going to go on a holiday they’d probably saved up a year for, some may be going for a honeymoon.

“I’d hope that hotels and others would have a good community spirit and understand that these are people who are really frustrated, really disappointed and some devastated – [I’d hope] they’d be putting out a helping hand, rather than making profit out of it.”

It is not yet clear why a fire at just one substation was able to shut down Heathrow completely. The airport had multiple sources of power but the fire had affected a “particularly important bit,” the BBC reported a National Grid source saying on Friday.

The mayor said it was “really important we don’t speculate in relation to the various power entry points into Heathrow Airport, the other substations that serve Heathrow Airport”.

He added: “Heathrow took the decision – and it’s their decision to take – to close down the airport because of concerns they had, and I support their operational independence to do so. Clearly, there will be questions and lessons to be learnt in relation to this, as there are with any major incident.

“I know from past experience, it’s not just Heathrow Airport, not just National Grid, the Fire Brigade, the police, the Government indeed, City Hall, the council and others – we’ll be working together to make sure lessons are learnt.”

Asked whether Heathrow needs to re-consider its own resilience arrangements going forward, Sir Sadiq praised the airport as being “run very well, they’re assiduous in making sure lessons are learnt in relation to challenges they have”.

Regarding the investigation into the fire’s cause, he said: “As soon as the Met Police service are comfortable sharing their conclusions, they’ll make sure those conclusions are made available.”

Asked about his opposition to a third runway at Heathrow, and whether Friday’s events had shaped his thinking on that question, he said they were “two really separate issues, and we mustn’t conflate the two”.

He added: “What today’s about is making sure the fire’s under control, it’s really important that families and homes who have lost their power have it returned as soon as possible, the families who have been evacuated are returned to their homes as soon as possible, but also really importantly for the Fire Brigade and the Met Police service to carry out their investigations, to find out the causes, and make sure we can return power, through National Grid, to the airport and others as soon as possible.”

“There’ll be a further conversation about lessons that can and should be learnt, which is also equally important.”