What can the Heathrow Airport power outage teach us about resilience?

Tools

Wright, Jane and Irvine, James (2026) What can the Heathrow Airport power outage teach us about resilience? IEEE Reliability Magazine, 3 (3). 37 - 46. (https://doi.org/10.1109/MRL.2026.3717886)

[thumbnail of Wright-Irvine-2026-What-can-the-Heathrow-Airport-power-outage-teach-us-about-resilience]
Preview
 Text. Filename: Wright-Irvine-2026-What-can-the-Heathrow-Airport-power-outage-teach-us-about-resilience.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 logo
Download (763kB)| Preview

Abstract

Events with substantial operational consequences can no longer be regarded as rare occurrences, with multiple such disruptions being observed over the past year. The power outage at Heathrow Airport in March 2025 provides a salient example of how interdependent infrastructure systems can experience cascading operational failures. Although electrical power was restored within hours, the delayed recovery of airport operations exposed vulnerabilities in the airport’s capacity to manage cascading failures across interconnected systems. Therefore, highlighting the need for a holistic, systems-based approach to resilience planning. This article is a sociotechnical case study of Heathrow Airport’s response to the power outage and considers the lessons that must be learned to enhance infrastructure resilience.

ORCID iDs

Wright, Jane ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-9457-543X and Irvine, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2078-6517;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)