[evgen]

Few people actually include necessary infrastructure into their threat model and almost no one is willing to pay the cost of building effective redundancy into the system. I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation.

And no, it is not a national security issue. There are three other airports in the London region, plus RAF Norholt and RAF Kenly inside the M25 ring.

[petercooper]

I used to live next to RAF Kenley, it's not really usable in any valuable way - it's a relic. It's for gliders only with no powered flight allowed. It has no facilities and is very uneven/roughly paved, but could probably accept landings of small planes or fighters in extremis. Biggin Hill would be used instead if you needed an airport in that immediate area.

[tomhut]

Small world, I was gliding there yesterday. Agreed, given the state of the runway, Biggin Hill or Redhill would be a better alternative.

[smashah]

Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy, what is with the dismissive attitude?

I don't imagine an american being so dismissive about JFK being taken offline.

[traceroute66]

> Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy

Is it, really ?

From Heathrow's own website[1], so we can expect figures on the "generous" side:

"Heathrow Airport is expected to contribute approximately £4.7bn to the UK economy "

This incident started somewhere around midnight and is currently estimated to be resolved by 15:00. So let's round that up to "one day".

£4.7bn divided by 365 is £12.8m

Compared to say, the UK financial services sector which contributed £208.2bn to the UK economy in 2023[2] where an equivalent day out would cost £570m .... Heathrow's paltry £12m is equivalent to a 30 minute outage in the financial sector.

Also, to put it further into perspective - Tesco, the UK's biggest supermarket operator - had revenues of £68bn last year...[3]

[1]https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/common/doc... [2]https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06... [3] https://companiesmarketcap.com/gbp/tesco/revenue/

[evgen]

A significant part of the economy perhaps, but 'national security threat' is a somewhat higher bar IMHO. LHR has a role of convenience, but not necessity. If JFK was shut down for a day or two and had limited operations for another week it would be inconvenient but would barely register in the national economic stats. I am on a flight heading out of Heathrow on Sunday for work travel and have booked an alternative out of Gatwick just in case. Inconvenient, but not a massive problem.

What will be telling here is how quickly things adapt to the disruption. I expect to feel more impact from the loss of power to businesses in the surrounding area that are involved in air shipment than in the flight disruptions (e.g. cold chain logistics and inventory management for just-in-time processes that warehouse near the airport.)

[monkey_monkey]

> Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy

You'll need to back up that assertion.

I imagine any American who thought about it would have a similarly 'dismissive' attitude.

[d1sxeyes]

I mean sure it's expensive, but economic harm (unless it's intentional and large-scale) is not really seen as a national security issue in the UK.

[benterix]

> I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation.

So basically this is what Putin is trying to do - find vulnerable points and attack them. For now, creating disruption without human casualties.