What the Heathrow crisis teaches us about airport website resilience

Earlier this week, a fire near Heathrow Airport forced widespread disruption. Terminals were evacuated, flights grounded, and passengers left searching for answers. As emergency services handled the situation on the ground, thousands of people turned to Heathrow’s website in search of clear, up-to-date information.

In critical moments like this, an airport’s website becomes the single most important channel for communication. Passengers need immediate updates on flight status, terminal changes, safety advice, and support services. If your website buckles under pressure - or worse, goes offline - you’re not just delivering a poor digital experience; you’re adding to the chaos.

Lessons from Heathrow

The Heathrow incident highlighted two key issues:

1. Timely, accurate information was essential.
2. Planning for major spikes in traffic paid off, as far ae we know there were not performance issues under peak demand.

These factors go beyond tech performance. They directly impact passenger wellbeing, customer trust, and brand reputation.

Building a crisis-ready website

For airports and other critical infrastructure providers, the message is clear: your digital estate needs to be ready for the worst. Here’s how:

1. Prioritise scalable infrastructure

Your site must be built on infrastructure that scales rapidly. Cloud hosting with autoscaling capabilities ensures your site won’t crash when thousands of users land on it simultaneously.

2. Plan for high-volume scenarios

Run regular stress tests to simulate crisis-level traffic. Identify bottlenecks, and fix them before the real-world pressure hits. It’s not just about uptime—it’s about speed and accessibility under strain.

3. Create a crisis comms layer

Design your website with an emergency comms layer that can override the homepage with priority messages, live updates, and essential travel info. This should be lightweight, fast-loading, and easy to manage by your internal teams without waiting on developers.

4. Integrate real-time data

Pull in live feeds for flight status, transport disruption, and safety notices. Automate as much as possible to reduce manual input and human error when teams are under pressure.

5. Focus on the mobile experience

Most passengers will access your site on a mobile device. Your emergency information should be optimised for small screens and poor connectivity.

Be prepared for a crisis

Airports don’t get to choose when a crisis will hit- but they can choose to be ready. This was an extreme event, but many other events can cause significant spikes in traffic such as severe weather conditions or a security alert. Heathrow’s fire was a wake-up call for the aviation industry: when your physical operations go offline, your digital presence becomes your front line.

Is your website ready to step in when it matters most? Talk to us about how you can prepare your website for an unexpected event.