{"id":264462,"date":"2025-03-22T13:47:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T13:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/22\/so-eager-to-get-back-travelers-pour-into-a-reopened-heathrow\/"},"modified":"2025-03-22T13:47:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T13:47:16","slug":"so-eager-to-get-back-travelers-pour-into-a-reopened-heathrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/22\/so-eager-to-get-back-travelers-pour-into-a-reopened-heathrow\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018So Eager to Get Back\u2019: Travelers Pour Into a Reopened Heathrow"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/22\/multimedia\/22int-heathrow-scene-01-hjqg\/22int-heathrow-scene-01-hjqg-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\u2018So Eager to Get Back\u2019: Travelers Pour Into a Reopened Heathrow\" title=\"\u2018So Eager to Get Back\u2019: Travelers Pour Into a Reopened Heathrow\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Throngs of passengers anxious to get on their way surged into Heathrow Airport in London on Saturday, a day after a power blackout <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/21\/world\/europe\/london-heathrow-airport-closed.html?searchResultPosition=3\" title=\"\">closed the airport<\/a> and forced thousands to delay their trips.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As information boards flickered back to life, an army of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/22\/world\/europe\/heathrow-airport-flights.html\" title=\"\">extra airport staff members<\/a>, dressed in purple, sprang into action to help people as they walked through the terminal doors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ganesh Suresh, a 25-year-old student who was trying to get home to Bangalore, India, was among those who secured a coveted seat on a Saturday flight. After his Air India flight was canceled, his parents booked new tickets on Virgin Atlantic, while he spent the night at a friend\u2019s place in Birmingham, England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI was so eager to get back,\u201d Mr. Suresh said. He sheepishly admitted to yelling at his parents in frustration during the height of the shutdown chaos. \u201cI might apologize to them when I get back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Travelers, diverted or rebooked, arrived early, with trains and other transport routes to the airport reopened. A day earlier, the airport\u2019s roads were empty except for police cars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Heathrow representative said on Saturday that the airport was \u201copen and fully operational,\u201d adding that the extra flights on the day\u2019s schedule could accommodate 10,000 extra passengers. At the airport, information boards showed that most flights would leave on time, but the snaking lines at ticketing counters signaled that many travelers were in for more frustrating delays.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than a thousand flights were diverted on Friday, wreaking havoc on more than a quarter of a million people\u2019s travel plans, Cirium, an aviation data company, estimated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some travelers chose not to wait for a flight out of Heathrow. Denyse Kumbuka had lingered in the dimmed Terminal 2 for as long as she could on Friday, spending hours on a bench trying to find her way back home to Dallas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then her husband found a seat for her on a flight via Austria. She navigated the London Underground rail system to St. Pancras International train station and got a train to Paris. After spending the night on another bench at Charles de Gaulle Airport, she took an early flight to Vienna, then connected to Dallas on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI feel like the mom in \u2018Home Alone,\u2019\u201d she said in a text message, referencing the exhausting journey depicted in the 1990 film.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Heathrow representative said significant delays were expected in the coming days as airlines tried to return their planes to their usual schedules. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For Stephen Delong, 74, and Lesley Scott, 73, the long line at the ticketing office turned out to be the smoothest part of their redirected travel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou have to come here; you have to talk to someone,\u201d Mr. Delong said. \u201cThe online service just doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The couple had just learned that in place of their original direct flight from London to Halifax, Air Canada would be rerouting them via Toronto, adding more than 15 hours to their travel time thanks to a long layover. And they would have to spend another night in London because flights on Saturday were all booked. The shutdown had already caused them to miss their grandson\u2019s eighth birthday on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou can\u2019t get angry about it,\u201d Mr. Delong said. \u201cIt would feel different if somebody blew up the generator.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The police were still investigating what had caused the fire at the substation in western London that cut power to Heathrow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">John Yoon<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/22\/world\/europe\/heathrow-airport-london-travelers.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Throngs of passengers anxious to get on their way surged into Heathrow Airport in London on Saturday, a day after a power blackout closed the airport and forced thousands to delay their trips. As information boards flickered back to life, an army of extra airport staff members, dressed in purple, sprang into action to help [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/22\/multimedia\/22int-heathrow-scene-01-hjqg\/22int-heathrow-scene-01-hjqg-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[169293,8321,202964,203054,64421,1200,84420,24894,202853,4736,191488,27900,6189],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264464,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264462\/revisions\/264464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}