T5 improvements greet British Airways customers

British Airways customers flying through Terminal 5 at Heathrow are now benefiting from even more space and improved facilities following the opening of a new £340m third part of the terminal.

The new satellite terminal, known as “T5 C”, provides additional capacity and will help to make sure that customers have an even smoother start or end to their journeys.

More than 70 million customers on over 500,000 flights have used Terminal 5 since it opened in March 2008 and the facility has helped British Airways to achieve record levels of punctuality, baggage performance and the airline’s highest ever customer satisfaction scores.

With the opening of T5 C, an extra three million customers each year, will be able to walk directly on or off their aircraft by using a covered “air bridge” linked to the terminal building, rather than having to use a bus.

The new satellite 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 British Airways from early 2013.

Situated closer to the other terminals at Heathrow, T5 C will give British Airways greater flexibility in how it manages its 4,000 flights a week at the world’s busiest international airport. A new dedicated transfer baggage tunnel linking T5 C and Terminal 3, due to open in 2012 will further improve baggage performance for all airlines at the airport.

Andy Lord, British Airways director of operations, said: “We know how much our customers love flying through Terminal 5 and our operations continue to break performance records on a regular basis.

“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 that T5 C will improve our overall performance even further.”

The T5 C satellite is linked to the rest of Terminal 5 by the existing underground transit system, with journeys taking just over a minute. The building also has a range of shops for last minute purchases before customers board their aircraft.

Terminal 5 operational facts:

More than 520,000 flights have now departed or arrived at the terminal since opening day.

July 2010 was the terminal’s busiest ever month with more than 2.4 million customers using the facilities.

The busiest day since opening was Friday July 30, 2010 with more than 83,500 customers travelling through Terminal 5.

Around six million customers have used the six luxurious lounges in the terminal, which were built at a cost of £60 million.

Edinburgh is the most popular shorthaul destination.

New York and Los Angeles are the most popular longhaul destinations.

For more information and flight bookings, visit: ba.com