London Heathrow, Europe’s largest international airport, confirmed on Wednesday evening that it was “aware of issues affecting its website” and that IT teams were investigating . Although flight operations were unaffected, passengers were temporarily unable to access real-time arrivals, departures and e-gate advice online.
For corporate travellers the outage highlights a persistent weak-spot in travel risk management: digital channels, rather than airline counters, are now the primary source of last-minute gate or disruption information. During previous IT incidents—notably the May 2023 e-gate failure—lack of timely updates compounded queues at immigration.
Travel managers with high volumes of Heathrow traffic should remind employees to download airline apps and to enrol in Heathrow’s push-notification service as back-ups. The episode also underscores the benefit of Advance Passenger Information APIs that allow duty-of-care teams to track flights independently of airport systems.
Heathrow handled 79 million passengers in 2024 and is a critical node for onward connections to the US and Asia. While Wednesday’s glitch was minor, any prolonged digital blackout could quickly escalate into a wider mobility bottleneck, particularly as the airport prepares for Christmas peak traffic.
For corporate travellers the outage highlights a persistent weak-spot in travel risk management: digital channels, rather than airline counters, are now the primary source of last-minute gate or disruption information. During previous IT incidents—notably the May 2023 e-gate failure—lack of timely updates compounded queues at immigration.
Travel managers with high volumes of Heathrow traffic should remind employees to download airline apps and to enrol in Heathrow’s push-notification service as back-ups. The episode also underscores the benefit of Advance Passenger Information APIs that allow duty-of-care teams to track flights independently of airport systems.
Heathrow handled 79 million passengers in 2024 and is a critical node for onward connections to the US and Asia. While Wednesday’s glitch was minor, any prolonged digital blackout could quickly escalate into a wider mobility bottleneck, particularly as the airport prepares for Christmas peak traffic.
