London's Airports by Martin Bowman & Graham Simons

Author:Martin Bowman & Graham Simons
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783408771
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Two views of the interior of Heathrow’s new Terminal Five, showing the main concourse (above) and check-in area (below).

British Airways’ new terminal – now running smoothly after initial hitches.

On 23 November 2009, Terminal 2, Heathrow’s oldest terminal, which opened as the Europa Building in 1955, closed, the last flight to depart being an Air France flight to Paris. Despite the best efforts of maintenance staff and various renovations and upgrades, the building was becoming increasingly decrepit and unserviceable. Originally designed to handle around 1.2 million passengers annually, in its final years of operation it often catered for around eight million passengers. After demolition, the building of a vast new Terminal 2 that would incorporate the site of the old Queen’s Building, which was also demolished, was begun. This new home for Star Alliance carriers is expected to open in 2014. A second phase, replacing Terminal 1, will open in 2019. The construction of the new terminal envisages a complete realignment of piers more logically, and the building of new ones on the now defunct crosswind runway, in a site taking up roughly the same amount of space as Terminal 5. Formerly Heathrow East, the core terminal building will be known as Terminal 2A, and there will be two satellite buildings named Terminal 2B and Terminal 2C. Terminal 2B will provide Heathrow with sixteen additional stands, and it will be connected via an underground link to the main terminal building. Terminal 2C will be built as part of the second phase of the development. The entire project will have a capacity of thirty million passengers a year, and will cost £1 – 1.5 billion.

The major businesses operating at Heathrow, in particular British Airways and the airport operator BAA, long advocated construction of a new third runway at Heathrow, together with a sixth terminal, which would increase the capacity of Heathrow by 50%. Heathrow currently has only two parallel runways, operating at around 98% capacity. Its European rivals, such as Munich, Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt, have runways operating at an average of only 75% capacity. If Heathrow was to maintain its position in Europe’s airport hierarchy, it needed to have a third runway in the long term, and to operate in mixed mode (where the two runways are used for both take-offs and landings) on its runways in the short term, which would increase capacity from 473,000 operations a year to 573,000. Heathrow’s two runways currently operate on segregated mode. One of the objections to T5 had been that it would attract fresh traffic that would demand an additional runway. Theoretically a 2,000-metre third runway operating in mixed mode would allow the airport to handle up to 720,000 movements a year. BAA estimated that the economic benefits for the wider economy of a third runway was £7 billion a year, or £30 billion by 2030. The government calculated that the proposal would generate over £4.8 billion in direct net economic benefits. On 16 December 2003 the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling,

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