Heathrow’s £4.5 billion Terminal 5 has opened to the public today with its first flight touching down at 04:50 GMT.
The flight was from Hong Kong, while the first departure left for Paris at 06:20 this morning.
The terminal will operate British Airways (BA) flights only, which until now were spread over three of the airport’s terminals. BA moved its equipment and aircraft overnight in a massive operation to open on time.
According to Heathrow’s operator BAA, the extra capacity will ease congestion at the airport, while cutting waiting times for passengers.
It is designed by the same architects who created the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Welsh Assemble Building, Richards Rogers Partnership, and took 60,000 people to construct the glass-walled building.
Although the opening has run smoothly so far, protest group HACAN - Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise – has organised a ‘flash mob’ event at 11:00 which will involve “standing dead still for a couple of minutes and then dispersing”, according to the group’s website.
Yesterday, BAA backed down on its plans to fingerprint domestic passengers going through Terminal 5 for identification purposes.
“It has been agreed that, pending the outcome of a review, domestic customers flying from T5 to Manchester, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh will not have to provide their fingerprints,” a statement on BA’s website said.
According to reports, the information commissioner is concerned the plans to fingerprint passengers at check-in and boarding gates may prove illegal under data protection laws.
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