LONDON — From Las Vegas to Frankfurt to Dubai, hundreds of thousands of stranded passengers waited for news about flights to and from London's Heathrow Airport after it was closed by a massive fire at a nearby electricity substation.
As firefighters tackled the blaze that took down Europe's busiest transport hub, flights came to a standstill, sending a wrecking ball through the delicate logistics underpinning global tourism and business travel.
In the hotels around Heathrow, thwarted travelers reported skyrocketing prices as they scrambled for a place to spend the night. In Dubai, Sara Mehta told NBC's international partner Sky News that customers of Heathrow-headquartered British Airways are “extremely angry and upset.”
In the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Charlotte Johnston told Sky News that she has been stuck in a layover at the airport for hours with only carry-on luggage, and that she was already out of clothes and toiletries.
Chez Khan, a client services director from London who was left stranded in Las Vegas, said Friday that the biggest impact on him was missing his children. “That I was away from home for a week was already a challenge,” he said.
Khan, 47, said that his airline carrier, Virgin Atlantic, directed him and another group of passengers to a Holiday Inn near the airport, but when they arrived staff told them that no one had contacted them and that they had no rooms available.
“We were then sent back to the airport, and no staff were available to help,” he said, adding, “So we were literally left stranded in Vegas.”
Eventually, he found other accommodation through work, he said.
Becky Davies, 41, said she was also left stranded in "Sin City" after celebrating her 20th anniversary with her husband. She said they were supposed to fly back overnight Thursday.
“It was a special trip for us. It’s just a shame it’s all gone so wrong at the end,” said Davies, 41, adding that their four children were waiting for their return. “My youngest is only 8, so she was so excited to see us come home,” Davies said.
In Switzerland, Taylor Collier-Brown said she was stranded in Geneva with her field hockey team after a skiing trip in the French Alps.
“Eleven hockey girls with a match tomorrow can’t make it back — the whole team is in Geneva,” she said.
While they were trying to back to London, Kazumi Nakamura and her 13-year-old daughter, Mana, were looking to leave and head home to Vancouver.
While she was hoping to get new flights with Air Canada, Nakamura, 50, was relatively calm as they waited in Paddington Station.
She said she wasn't in a rush, “but we want to go home.”
For others like Halleli Pinson, a professor of sociology of education at Israel’s Ben Gurion University, the situation was more frustrating.
Pinson, 51, was supposed to run two major sessions at an education conference in Chicago over the weekend, but her flight was canceled.
“I’m not only missing my own talk, I’m missing other responsibilities that I have,” Pinson told NBC News today in a telephone call. She added that the earliest her carrier, British Airways, could fly her to Chicago was Monday, but by then it would be too late.
Pinson’s sister, Shira Pinson, is a multimedia producer for NBC News who lives in London, said she will be able to “put up or put up with her sister.” But Halleli said she was “frustrated” with British Airways because they had not made “any efforts to put me on a different airline or a different flight.”
“I’m supposed to fly business class and I’m willing to fly a lower class — I just want to get to Chicago but they’re not willing to change that,” she said.
NBC News has approached British Airways for comment.
Foluke Oleniwen was a little luckier.
She said she arrived in London on a flight from Nigeria right before the airport was shuttered. “I’m relieved and at the same time I feel empathy for people who were affected because that could have been me or anybody,” added Oleniwen, 40.
Los Angeles comedian Adam Conover was determined to make London no matter what.
After his flight to Heathrow was diverted midair, he said he would fly to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he faced a four-hour layover before flying out to Manchester in northern England. From there he said he would get the train to London.
The journey was a testament to how “hard stand-up comedians work” to make people laugh, he said, adding that after this experience, he was likely to have some fresh material.
