{"id":25520,"date":"2025-03-23T02:35:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T02:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/heathrow-fire-meant-i-had-29-hour-trip-for-a-wedding\/"},"modified":"2025-03-23T02:35:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T02:35:39","slug":"heathrow-fire-meant-i-had-29-hour-trip-for-a-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/heathrow-fire-meant-i-had-29-hour-trip-for-a-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Heathrow fire meant I had 29-hour trip for a wedding’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Jonathan Geddes & Suzanne Allan<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Adam Boggon said he felt “lucky” to attend his friend’s wedding reception, despite his long trip.<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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A Scottish doctor has made it to a friend’s wedding – despite the Heathrow power outage – after a 29-hour journey involving planes, trains and automobiles.<\/p>\n

Adam Boggon was in the United States when he found himself among thousands of passengers caught up in the chaos at Heathrow Airport after a nearby fire on Friday. <\/p>\n

Mr Boggon told BBC Scotland News he felt “lucky” despite the length of his trip and missing the ceremony itself, because he was there in time for the photos and wedding reception. <\/p>\n

Flights between Heathrow and Scotland’s major airports have now returned to a normal service<\/a> but passengers are still advised to check travel plans in advance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More than 1,300 flights were disrupted on Friday<\/a> after the blaze broke out, including flights to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness airports.<\/p>\n

Among the flights affected was Mr Boggon’s trip from Boston, which he discovered on Friday morning local time. <\/p>\n

A replacement trip saw him travel to New York, take an overnight flight to London, board a morning plane to Glasgow and then get driven up to Drymen, near Loch Lomond, by his parents – arriving just in time for the wedding photos being taken. <\/p>\n

His rearranged travel plans also meant an “extra couple of train trips” while in America.<\/p>\n

He said: “I started in Boston at five in the morning on Friday \u2013 that flight was understandably cancelled but I got another one to New York, which flew overnight to Heathrow and then up to Glasgow, so it has taken about 29 hours.<\/p>\n

“Just the fact I got a ticket at all for another flight was a bit of a lottery \u2013 I just happened to be near the front of the queue. <\/p>\n

“I imagine there are a lot of people far away from where they want to be, and while I’ve missed the wedding I’ll definitely be there for the reception, so I’m lucky.”<\/p>\n

Mr Boggon, originally from Fife but now working in London, added that he would be taking a train to travel home after the wedding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Flights have resumed to Scotland from Heathrow Airport<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Heathrow only reopened late on Friday afternoon, with the initial priority being flights that had been diverted away from London.<\/p>\n

By Saturday morning services from Heathrow into Scotland were once again operating regularly, with a flight from London to Aberdeen departing just after 06:30 and arriving in Scotland around 07:40.<\/p>\n

Some Edinburgh flights were cancelled throughout the morning but were expected to fly as planned throughout the afternoon. <\/p>\n

In a statement on social media<\/a> Glasgow Airport said: “We advise all passengers travelling to LHR over the next few days to check with their airline for the status of their flight before heading to the airport.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘No communication’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Among those affected were Tartan Army football fans travelling back from watching the national team’s 1-0 victory over Greece<\/a> on Thursday. <\/p>\n

Shaughan McGuigan managed to get flights home via Krakow rather than his initial plan to go to London using British Airways – the airline most affected by the chaos.<\/p>\n

He told BBC Scotland News: “It was a very tight turnaround but it was fine in the end.<\/p>\n

“The biggest disappointment was British Airways. There was no communication from them until 11:00 and even this it was only that they could take us back on Monday, which would involve an eight hour stay at Heathrow.<\/p>\n

“If you didn’t want the flight you had to phone a number that took forever to get through, but I suspect it was a minor inconvenience compared to some.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"FamilyFamily handout<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Liz Steele missed her youngest son’s graduation<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Less fortunate was Liz Steele, who missed her youngest son Paddy’s graduation in Stirling on Friday.<\/p>\n

She told BBC News: “It was devastating. <\/p>\n

“I know that there are people that have been affected much worse than this, but I’ve been to every other graduation that my kids have had, Masters and undergrads, and I just always thought that I would be there.”<\/p>\n

Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye denied the incident<\/a> – caused by a transformer catching fire within the North Hyde electrical substation – had made the airport a “laughing stock”.<\/p>\n

He told the BBC’s Today programme: “We have other substations but to switch them in takes time.<\/p>\n

“The situation was not created at Heathrow Airport, it was created outside the airport and we had to deal with the consequences.” <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for British Airways said around 85% of its services would be able to fly today.<\/p>\n

On social media Heathrow Airport advised all passengers to check flights in advance before travelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Jonathan Geddes & Suzanne Allan BBC News Adam Boggon said he felt “lucky” to attend his friend’s wedding reception, despite his long trip. A Scottish doctor has made it to a friend’s wedding – despite the Heathrow power outage – after a 29-hour journey involving planes, trains and automobiles. Adam Boggon was in the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[9206,666,1296,9205,3928,2791],"class_list":["post-25520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scotland","tag-29hour","tag-fire","tag-heathrow","tag-meant","tag-trip","tag-wedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25522,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25520\/revisions\/25522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}