i dont know if this has been posted befor, and i apologise if it has been, but trawling around on the BA website i saw this press release dated 01-04-2005.
The following British Airways press release about their move to Terminal 5 at LHR is very interesting to read.
T5 will see a lot of improvements. For example: the terminal is designed to let people walk in only one direction to avoid ‘crossing traffic’. The classic baggage belts in the check-in hall will also be something of the past. Just check it out yourself! Enjoy!
“The importance of terminal 5 and what it means to the future of British Airways cannot and should not be underestimated. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity and affords us the chance to build a new Heathrow.”
Rod Eddington, Chief Executive of British Airways
BA’s new Heathrow home
London Heathrow today is the world’s busiest international airport, serving 67 million passengers a year.
To relieve congestion and meet growing demand for air travel, the airport is being expanded with the construction of a new terminal.
Terminal 5 will become BA’s new home from the spring of 2008, handling around 30 million passengers a year.
For BA, the £4.2 billion state-of-the-art facility means, at last, a single terminal operation at its main worldwide hub and, with it, opportunities to modernise and grow its business.
Single campus
BA currently operates more than 270 departures a day from Heathrow, serving more than 130 destinations a week.
From the end of March 2008, all of these services – short and long haul – will be based in a single terminal, rather than operating from Terminals 1, 3 and 4, as at present.
Landmark design
The concept and design for Terminal 5 has been developed by the Richard Rogers Partnership to the specification of airport operator, BAA.
Created as a landmark building for the 21st century, the main terminal building alone will be as big as many other major airports.
The Terminal 5 site covers 260 hectares, just under a quarter of the size of the current Heathrow campus.
It will eventually consist of a main terminal building (T5A) and two satellites (T5B and T5C) linked by an underground shuttle train. T5A and T5B are scheduled to open in 2008 with T5C opening in 2011.
BA’s long-term aim is to use the main terminal for all short haul services. The majority of long haul flights will be operated from the two satellites.
Improved customer experience
This massive relocation of services will transform the flying experience for the millions of British Airways passengers who pass through Heathrow each year.
For the vast majority, the new experience will be faster, smoother and simpler.
Better connections
Terminal 5 will not only smooth connections but will also significantly reduce connecting times from 75 to 45 minutes.
Self-service and smart technology
Smart use of self-service technology, together with simplified airport processes, will be key to features of Terminal 5.
A key stream of work being carried out now in preparation for Terminal 5 is helping to make the airport experience smoother and simpler, reducing airport queues wherever possible.
A big part of this is encouraging customers to carry out tasks before they even set foot in the terminal building.
Checking-in online and pre-printing boarding passes from home are just two of the initiatives gathering momentum now which will have become a way of life for BA customers before Terminal 5 opens.
Customers can already complete many tasks in the comfort of their own home, such as choosing their seat, ordering meals, booking hotels and hire cars and even providing APIS data.
Smoother, faster check-in
One of the main changes at Terminal 5 will be the way passenger and baggage is checked in.
The layout of the concourse will be quite different to what customers are used to at Heathrow. It is designed to improve and speed the process.
Customers will progress logically through the building, moving forward at every stage to eliminate back-flows and cross-flows of people getting in each other’s way.
From the self-service check-in kiosks, travellers will be able to go straight to the baggage drop-off points and then through security.
And for those customers who still prefer the personal touch, dedicated teams of highly trained customer service staff will be available to offer a helping hand.
Baggage drop-off
Baggage will also be handled differently.
Instead of going onto belts behind the check-in desks, bags will be loaded into lifts and lowered down into the new, state of the art baggage system on their way to the aircraft hold.
This will allow passengers to move forward between desks, instead of doubling back on themselves.
Unrivalled access, seamless transport
Journeying to the new terminal will also be easier with enhanced transport links to the rest of the airport and London.
New extensions to the Piccadilly underground line and Heathrow Express are being built along with a dedicated bus station and a new spur road from the M25, leading directly to the terminal area.
More efficient airport operations
Terminal 5 will also enable BA to significantly improve the efficiency of its aircraft operations at Heathrow.
All Heathrow operational staff will work from Terminal 5, including flying crews.
As well as modern working conditions, more efficient ways of working will also be introduced. Working practices, which currently vary by Heathrow terminal will be replaced with a single process.
Teams will work in designated zones to minimise staff journey times between tasks. The amount of equipment will be reduced and standardised.
With two-way taxiways, no cul-de-sacs or runway crossings, taxi times will be shorter.
New systems to improve management of aircraft stands and the movement of ground equipment, baggage and staff around the terminal will be introduced.
Testing
Phase one of Terminal 5 – the main terminal and satellite B – will be completed by September 2007, followed by six months of rigorous systems testing. Satellite C is scheduled for completion three years later.
Getting ‘Fit for 5’
Between now and 2008, getting ‘Fit for 5’ is the huge challenge BA faces to ensure the move to the new terminal is a successful one.
Focus is being put upon getting the airline’s systems, processes and working practices ready now.
The transition is already underway. The management of terminal 1, 3 and 4 has already been brought together under one person, which is the first step in organising the airline’s people in one team for Terminal 5.
Employees, and trade unions will be closely involved in the planning process up to the move in 2008.
Fascinating Facts
* Terminal 5 is one of Europe’s largest current construction projects
* It follows the UK’s longest Public Inquiry in British history – 700 witnesses gave over 30 million words of testimony during the 46 month hearing
* When it is finished it will handle 30 million passengers a year, the equivalent of the UK’s population will pass through Terminal 5 every 625 days
* The site is as large as London’s Hyde Park and five times the size of Terminal 4
* The main terminal building is 400m long – the equivalent of 40 London double-decker buses parked bumper to bumper.
* It is 43m high – as tall as the towers on London’s Tower Bridge
* There are five levels – each the size of 10 full-sized football pitches
* The terminal will have 175 lifts and 131 escalators
* The new control tower is 87m high – the tallest such tower in the United Kingdom, one and a half times the height of Nelson’s Column
* Terminal 5 will be capable of accommodating the Airbus A380
* More than 13.5 km of tunnels will connect the new terminal to the Piccadilly line and the Heathrow Express
* 20,000 trees, shrubs and ornamental grasses are being used to landscape Terminal 5
* Over 80 per cent of waste generated at T5 will be recycled
* A rapid transit system will transport passengers and staff from the main terminal to the satellites
* The state of the art baggage system will have 18km of baggage belt to transport luggage around the new terminal
* Once security has been cleared, it will only be six minutes to even the furthest gate in the main terminal building
* For passengers using the satellite buildings, an underground transit train will depart every 90 seconds, taking less than a minute to reach the first satellite, and another minute to the second
British Airways press release, 01/04/2005
Now one thing that struck me is that T5 can handle the A380,but it’s also going to be solely for the use of BA,unless they get screwed again like on T4.
now is this an insight to the future and BA will buy the A380 at some point,or just wait until Boeing decides it will/will not start a 747adv programme
And on a more serious note…could those interferring boffins at the EU anti competitive dept see BA abusing it’s dominant position and order it or BAA to give other airlines capacity at T5?
By: dc10fan - 31st May 2005 at 06:47
T5 certainly looked impressive when I flew into LHR yesterday, but I can see a few problems here:
47 stands are being quoted; will this be enough for even BA alone at peak times? I’m 99% sure that they use more than that at T1/3/4.
Unrivalled access; hardly. By road you still have the fun of the M25 and the rail links will still be 3rd class. Why can’t they offer the same as CDG/AMS/FRA/ZRH? ie. direct long distance services.
Taxiways around T5 may be great but not really relevant when a/c still have to taxi past central area for a 27L/R t/o ie.right to the other end of the airfield.
The fact that it will take until 2008 for BA to get all their services into one terminal is typical; other competitors such as AF/KLM/LH and most US carriers have had this for 10+ years.
By: Dantheman77 - 31st May 2005 at 00:12
i for one hope that T5 is not as bad as T4….when waiting for the first flight to arrive at T4 for the baggage can be as long as 50 minutes, where as all the other terminals can be 20 mins plus…….when copying and pasting the article from BA, i didnt consider other oneworld™ partners for A380 programme arriving at T5.
But,this still doesnt take into account of the European *numbskulls/d-ckheads and jelous….(*delete as applicable) anti competition rules ordering BA, BAA or HM GOVT openinh up T5 to other airlines, such as KLM ( which i saw a KLM 777 climbing like a homesick angel on sunday the 29th May) or air Sri lanka and alike…..
By: bmi-star - 30th May 2005 at 21:36
Oh right! Good then 😀
By: OneLeft - 30th May 2005 at 17:28
They won’t have to bmi-star. The whole BA operation will be in T5.
If people arrive on other carriers at T1 and need to get to T5 they will use the usual buses, underground or express.
1L.
By: bmi-star - 30th May 2005 at 16:59
How will transferring between T5 and T1 be for BA pax? Not as horrendus as it is to T4 now i hope?
By: OneLeft - 30th May 2005 at 16:53
Not sure about that Mark to be honest.
Of course a lot can change between now and then. One thing about BA and BAA is that todays plan is tomorrows wastepaper!
1L.
By: Mark L - 30th May 2005 at 13:54
Interesting OneLeft, I have read in several places that it will be all OneWorld. Is there simply not enough space for all of them?
By: OneLeft - 30th May 2005 at 12:49
The intention at the moment is that T5 will only be used by BA and it’s franchise partners. The other Oneworld airlines will not be using T5. I believe a decision is yet to be made regarding how best to bring the rest of the Oneworld carriers together at LHR and how this can be linked in to the BA operation, although a Oneworld area of T3 seems to be the favourite at the moment, purely as it is the closest to T5.
As for BAA ‘shafting’ BA regarding sole occupation of T5, BA have agreed to a lot of conditions to secure sole use, so I think the contracts will have been written in such a way that BA is much more protected on this one than when T4 opened.
I think the fact that T5 can accomodate the A380 is simply BAA planning ahead for future possibilities for once. I wouldn’t read too much into it as far as BA is concerned.
1L.
By: Mark L - 30th May 2005 at 12:14
Agreed, I guess we will see both for quite a while.
By: Airline owner - 30th May 2005 at 11:57
Quite an interesting article. Rembember T5 is for One World, and not just for BA, and therefore Qantas will of course be bringing their A380s in from the start.
😀 Sorry I didn’t see your new post pop up…
p.s MarkL-when I was at LHR last time I asked my Uncle who is good friends with a pilot from QF and apparently QF will still use their 747’s into LHR. I would have thought QF will use both really.
By: Airline owner - 30th May 2005 at 11:55
Now one thing that struck me is that T5 can handle the A380,but it’s also going to be solely for the use of BA,unless they get screwed again like on T4.
Good Point but I think in the long term T5 will be the same as T4 where that airlines from the OneWorld Alliance will be able to use it. Now, personally I don’t know many airlines in the alliance but I’m sure there is one that is ordering the A380 and will be using it to LHR.
By: Mark L - 30th May 2005 at 11:46
Quite an interesting article. Rembember T5 is for One World, and not just for BA, and therefore Qantas will of course be bringing their A380s in from the start.
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May 30, 2005 at 11:15 am