The first flights to depart Heathrow after nearly 24 hours are now in the air. BA259 was the first to depart for Riyadh, followed closely by BA45 to Cape Town.
Heathrow will reopen for very limited flight movements at Terminals 3 and 5 this evening. British Airways says only passengers traveling on the following flights should come to the airport
All told, 121 flights to diverted away from Heathrow to 50 different airports.
As of 14:00 UTC on March 21, we have tracked 1310 canceled flights at London Heathrow.
A total of 120 aircraft inbound to London Heathrow have diverted so far. Here are the top 5 airports by number of diversions.
| Airport | Number of diversions |
|---|---|
| New York John F Kennedy Airport (JFK) | 28 |
| Washington Dulles Airport (IIAD) | 15 |
| Los Angeles Airport (LAX) | 15 |
| San Farncisco Airport (SFO) | 13 |
| Denver Airport (DEN) | 11 |
Boston Logan Airport (BOS) and Calgary Airport (YYC) have also proven popular, with 10 diversions each.
— virginatlantic (@VirginAtlantic) March 21, 2025
Available from 9.30AM at https://t.co/elGuXumwzZ pic.twitter.com/pFfhI9DOaY
— Ryanair Press Team (@RyanairPress) March 21, 2025
Based on current diversions, it appears #BA8 will be the last Heathrow flight to find an alternate airport. https://t.co/4R719iEdpJ pic.twitter.com/iaO496tXDc
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 21, 2025
A statement from British Airways following the disruption at London Heathrow Airport on 21 March pic.twitter.com/WGUZiBbJ9n
— British Airways (@British_Airways) March 21, 2025
At 07:45 UTC on a normal Friday, we’d expect to see about 200 flights in the air headed for Heathrow. Here’s traffic inbound to Heathrow this time last week.
And here’s traffic this morning as flights find their diversion airports.
Heathrow Airport was handling 83.9 million passengers last year. That gives about 220k passengers per day. pic.twitter.com/kymm3VpH6N
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 21, 2025
679 flights were scheduled to land and 678 flights were scheduled to take off from Heathrow today.
British Airways has been affected the most, with 30 diversions so far and more than a dozen aircraft still in the air.
Amsterdam, London-Gatwick, Frankfurt, and Shannon taking the most diversions so far.
A fire in an electrical substation has closed Heathrow Airport in London until at least 23:59 local time. At the time of the closure, 120 aircraft were in the air—all of which will be diverting to alternate airports. Heathrow has 1,351 scheduled flights on Friday, all of which will be canceled.
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