TORONTO — For Canadian travellers at least, the timing of today’s major disruption at London’s Heathrow Airport – in mid-March, still in the shoulder season for most Europe-bound travellers from Canada – has been a bit of a blessing.

However hundreds of thousands of passengers worldwide, including Canadians, still face flight cancellations after an overnight fire caused a power outage and forced LHR to close today, with further flight disruptions expected to last for days.

LHR is one of the world’s busiest for international flights and connections. At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow have been affected so far.

AIR CANADA & WESTJET UPDATES

As reported in Travelweek earlier today, both Air Canada and WestJet are among the scores of airlines around the world triggering flexible rebooking policies for LHR travellers.

Air Canada has triggered its flexible rebooking policy for flights in and out of Heathrow for March 21, 22 and 23. More details are here.

So far WestJet has implemented its policy for March 21. Click here for details.

Several arriving and departing flights between cities across Canada and LHR were cancelled.

Toronto Pearson listed at least five scheduled arriving flights from Heathrow as, as well as two departing flights. Airports in Vancouver and Montreal also listed multiple cancelled flights.

Air Canada said Friday that six of its flights on Thursday were diverted mid-air while a seventh was cancelled before departing. Those flights included some from routes through Toronto, Montreal and Calgary.

The airline said it had cancelled 16 flights in total, including return flights from London, and it was waiting on more information from Heathrow about scheduled flights for Friday evening.

Air Canada said it rerouted some customers to other European gateways and was helping passengers bound for London to change their travel plans.

THE LATEST FROM TOUR OPS

Travelweek reached out to tour operators to ask what they were advising clients.

TTC Tour Brands issued this update: “For those of you who have seen London Heathrow Airport has been closed for today, we just want to reassure that our amazing London Guest Services Team are monitoring [the situation]. Most flight arrivals are being diverted to Manchester or Amsterdam and the team are reaching out to guests to see if any further support is required on top of what the airlines are already organizing.” TTC Tour Brands also noted it had no LHR departures scheduled for today.

Travelweek also got this from Collette:  “We have a small group of travellers who are being impacted by this morning’s incident near the Heathrow airport. Our teams are currently in the process of monitoring the situation and contacting any travellers that are being affected.”

G Adventures was also alerting its clients, saying passengers are advised not to travel to the airport and should contact their airline for further information. “If their flights are impacted, we are of course providing support to ensure that they are able to join up with the group later, and assist with those logistics.”

SURGE PRICING AT LHR HOTELS

In the immediate aftermath of the fire and LHR’s closure, there are reports of surge pricing at hotels near Heathrow. One report put room rates at the Crowne Plaza at Heathrow’s Terminal Four at 485 pounds (US$627) for a room on Friday, compared with 140 pounds for the same time next week.

Eurostar says it is adding two additional trains between London and Paris to accommodate passengers stranded by the LHR shutdown. The high-speed train said it was increasing capacity by 882 passengers per train on Friday.

NO WORD ON WHEN POWER WILL BE RESTORED

The airport said in a statement it does not have “clarity on when power may be reliably restored.”

It said it expects “significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”

Heathrow earlier said the airport is not expected to reopen until Saturday.

The British government says “clearly there are questions to answer” about how a single fire could shut down Europe’s busiest airport.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there must be a rigorous investigation to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again.”

With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press