Airlines at Heathrow airport have been put on fuel rationing following the devastating Hemel Hempstead oil depot explosions, it was confirmed today.
The rationing, imposed by airport operator BAA, means some long-haul carriers are having to make "pit stops" to take on more fuel.
A spokeswoman for the Australian airline Qantas said its 9.30pm flight to Sydney this evening would make an additional stop at Stansted airport in Essex to top up. She said the airline was receiving sufficient fuel to allow its three other daily flights to Australia to depart as normal and negotiations were taking place to secure more fuel for the fourth flight from tomorrow. The additional stop is expected to add around 90 minutes to the long journey to Australia via Bangkok.
South African Airways, which operates from Heathrow to Johannesburg and Cape Town, said it expected one of its evening flights to have to make a refuelling stop. The airline added: "With a loss of one-third of the total fuel supplied to Heathrow, early indications suggest that the restrictions could run into a period of weeks if not months."
British Airways said it was coping with the fuel restrictions and was operating normally. Heathrow takes about one-third of its aviation fuel via a pipeline from the Buncefield depot in Hertfordshire. BAA said today that long-haul carriers using Heathrow were being rationed to about two-thirds of their normal fuel supply. Short-haul carriers were getting about half their normal supply.
BAA gets about a quarter of its Heathrow fuel via a pipeline from a depot at Fawley, near Southampton, and a further quarter from a facility at Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. Another 15% of fuel comes by rail.
The airport company has increased the amount of fuel from these other suppliers under contingency plans developed some time ago by local airline representatives through the Airline Operators Committee.
A BAA spokesman said: "The contingency plans have enabled us to stabilise supply and demand for fuel and continue near-normal airport operations for the 186,000 passengers that fly to and from Heathrow every day with minor disruption to some passengers and no cancellation of flights."
On Sunday, a huge fire at the Buncefield depot, one of the country's largest storage facilities, engulfed around 20 fuel tanks holding around 60m gallons of petroleum products.
