Heathrow shutdown, Mount Lewotobi volcano throw travel plans into chaos across the world

A power outage at London’s massive Heathrow Airport and a volcano in Indonesia has thrown global travel plans into disarray.

Global travel has been thrown into chaos following a shutdown at one of the world’s busiest airports and a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.

An estimated 120 flights over Europe have been diverted following a power outage at London’s massive Heathrow Airport, FlightRadar said on Friday, including Qantas flights.

QF1 from Singapore to London was scheduled to land at Heathrow on Friday morning, London time, but was diverted to Paris.

Operations at Heathrow are expected to be closed for all of Friday due to a “significant power outage” caused by a fire in an electrical substation.

“Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage across the airport due to a large fire at a nearby electrical substation,” a Heathrow spokesman said.

QF1 from Singapore to London was due to land at Heathrow on Friday morning, GMT, but diverted to land in Paris. Picture: Flight Aware

“While fire crews are responding to the incident, we do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored.

“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, we have no choice but to close Heathrow.

“We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”

FlightRadar estimates at least 1351 flight to and from London will be impacted.

“That doesn’t include any flights that might be cancelled or delayed due to aircraft being out of position,” the flight tracker service said.

A fire at an electrical substation sparked the closure. Picture London Fire Brigade

The QF9 Perth-London flight that left WA on Thursday evening was diverted and landed in Paris.

Two Qantas flights scheduled to depart London today are also expected to be impacted.

Meanwhile, a dozen flights from multiple airlines were delayed or cancelled on Friday morning at the busy I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali following a volcanic eruption in eastern Indonesia.

“Impacted customers have been notified directly and provided a range of options, including rebooking on the next available flight,” Jetstar said in a statement about its own flight cancellations on Friday morning.

A Jetstar flight to Singapore was delayed due to ash from the Mount Lewotobi volcano and a flight to Brisbane was cancelled.

The latest eruption from Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki has impacted flights to Australia. Picture: Arnold Welianto / AFP

The ash also grounded an AirAsia flight to Perth and a Virgin Australia flight to Melbourne.

Jetstar said services returned to normal operations about 1.30pm and afternoon flights had not been affected.

“Jetstar will resume normal operations between Australia and Denpasar this afternoon as conditions have improved following an earlier eruption of Mount Lewotobi in Indonesia,” the company said.

“Safety is always our number one priority and our teams will continue to monitor the situation closely and contact customers directly by SMS and email if there is any further impact to our flights.”

Mount Lewotobi is located east of Bali in Indonesia East Nusa Tenggara province, more than 1000km away.

The volcano erupted late on Thursday night local time.