Heathrow’s Terminal 5 has expanded with a £340 million terminal for an extra three million British Airways customers.
Known as T5 C, the new terminal becomes fully operational in mid-June and will allow passengers to walk directly on and off aircraft under a covered ‘air’ bridge linked to the terminal building instead of using a bus.
The new terminal has 12 boarding gates, of which eight are triple bridges designed to cater for the new 12-strong fleet of Airbus A380 aircraft joining BA from early 2013.
The terminal, which is linked with the rest of T5 by the existing underground transit system, includes a range of shops for last-minute purchases.
Next year a new dedicated baggage transfer tunnel linking T5 C and Terminal 3 will open to improve the speed of tranfering luggage between terminals.
BA director of operations Andy Lord said: “Terminal 5 has transformed our ability to offer the very highest standards of customer service which our passengers rightly expect for punctuality, baggage handling and relaxing before their flight. We hope T5 C will improve our overall performance even further.”
More than 70 million customers have used T5 since it opened in March 2008.