Brit’s dire week will get worse as Heathrow fireplace proves ‘unhealthy luck is available in threes’
They say bad luck comes in threes, but spare a thought for luckless Liam Humphreys who was told his landlord is selling his house and his gearbox broke before being left stranded in Bangkok
Britain’s unluckiest traveller was today left stranded in Bangkok due to the devastating fire at Heathrow Airport – all after being made homeless and the gearbox breaking on his car.
And while luckless Liam Humphreys has booked onto a flight to Zurich at 5.30pm GMT, his ticket says “standby”, he revealed. He is one of hundreds of thousands of travellers plunged into chaos after fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport caused a power outage on Thursday night.
Speaking to Sky News from Bangkok Airport, Liam revealed his landlord is selling his property, so he has less than a week to sort out a place to live and the day he before he flew out to Bangkok, the gearbox on his car broke.
He said he was offered a flight on Monday, but he is desperate to return to the UK as soon as possible to sort out his other issues.
Liam, who had been at the airport for more than 12 hours, said: “I’m very tired. I wasn’t told anything for about six hours until there was an update. You get given a flight on Monday or you can chose another flight. I’ve had to get another flight because I have to get home because there are so many things I need to do.
“I’m going to get made homeless, my landlord is going to sell the property and I literally have seven to ten days to find somewhere else because my next stage fell through a week before we flew out here.
“I’ve got to get back to work and also the day before I flew out, the gear box went on my car, so that’s literally three things I need to get back to.”
Liam said he had hoped to use the weekend to search for somewhere to live and sort his car out before returning to work on Monday. Sky News host Kamali Melbourne said: “These things happen in threes, but in your case it’s quads isn’t it? There’s four things that have compounded on you.”
Liam went on: “There’s been no food or drinks vouchers, there’s been no offers of accommodation. I wasn’t told my flight was full, but when I looked at my ticket I’m on ‘standby’.
“My flight is 12.30pm, so that is about 5.30pm UK time, then I have a 12 hour direct flight to Zurich.”
Even if he does make it to Zurich, Liam then has to fork out another £340 for a flight to Stanstead. But his woes don’t end there, as he added: “Because it’s not the airline’s fault, I’m not sure whether I can claim on the insurance or not.”
At least 1,351 flights to and from Heathrow will be affected on Friday, according to Flightradar24 said, with some 120 affected aircraft already in the air when the closure was announced.
The airport will be closed until at least 11.59pm on Friday, March 21, Heathrow said in a previous statement. But it warned customers to expect “significant disruption over the coming days”.
Partial power had been restored by Friday afternoon – lights in the main building have switched back on and lifts in the multi-storey car park are operational again.
But although power is back on in some parts of the airport, ultimately “that hasn’t changed things at all” as flights are still grounded.
And even when it is fully restored, services won’t just immediately resume as before, warns the chief executive of British Airways, which accounts for 51% of flights affected by the chaos.
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