A crowd of passengers are eager to make its appearance at London's Heathrow Airport on Saturday.
As the information board came to life, an army of extra airport staff in purple dressed in red took action to help people while walking through the terminal door.
Ganesh Suresh, a 25-year-old student who was about to return home to Bangalore, India, was one of those who secured coveted seats on Saturday's flight. After Air India Flight was cancelled, his parents booked new tickets at the Virgin Atlantic and he spent the night at a friend's location in Birmingham, England.
“I was very enthusiastic about coming back,” Suresh said. He grossly admitted to screaming at his parents in frustration during the chaos of shutdown. “I might apologize to them when I get back.”
Travelers who were repurposed or rebooked arrived early, resuming trains and other transportation routes. A day ago, the roads at the airport were empty except for the police cars.
A representative for Heathrow said on Saturday that the airport was “open and fully operational,” adding that extra flights on the day's schedule could accommodate 10,000 extra passengers. At the airport, the intelligence committee indicated that most flights depart on time, but the snake line at the ticket counter showed that many travelers were there due to more frustrating delays.
Air data company Cirium said more than 1,000 flights were repurposed on Friday, causing chaos to travel plans for more than 150,000 people.
Some travelers have chosen not to wait for flights from Heathrow. Denyse Kumbuka remained in dimly lit Terminal 2 on Friday as much as possible, spending hours on the bench trying to find a way back to Dallas.
Her husband then found a seat for her on a flight via Austria. She sailed the London Underground Railway System to St. Pancras International Railway Station and got a train to Paris. After spending the night on another bench at Charles de Gaulle airport, she boarded an early flight to Vienna, leading to Dallas on Saturday morning.
“I feel like a 'Home Alone' mom,” she said in a text message, referring to the tired journey depicted in the 1990 film.
A representative from Heathrow said there would be significant delays in the coming days as the airline tried to return the plane to its normal schedule.
For Stephen Delong, 74, and Lesley Scott, 73, the long line of ticket offices turned out to be the smoothest part of a redirect trip.
“You have to come here. You have to talk to someone,” Deron said. “Online services aren't working.”
The couple knew that Canada Air Canada would reroute them via Toronto instead of the original direct flight from London to Halifax. They have to spend another night in London as all Saturday flights were booked. Due to the shutdown, they had missed their grandson's eighth birthday on Friday.
“You can't be mad about it,” Deron said. “If someone blows the generator off, it's going to feel different.”
Police were still investigating the cause of the fire at a substation in west London that cut power over Heathrow.
Jung Yun contributed the report.
