Opening of Terminal 5

The Queen officially opened Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 and describe it as "21 century gateway to Britain".

Terminal 5 will begin its operations on 27 March with the opportunity to receive more passengers but no more flights.

Terminal 5 facts and figures

• Cost £4.3bn
  
• Construction started in 2002
  
• 9 million cubic metres of earth moved during construction
  
• 30,000 square metres of glass in walls
  
• Main terminal is 40m high
  
• 60 new aircraft stands, including 14 for the Airbus A380
  
• 13km of tunnels were bored for baggage handling and rail links
  
• Most rainwater falling on it will be recycled
  
• Six new rail platforms, including two for London Underground

Advantages

• Terminal 5 will be able to handle 30million passengers per year,
  
• The terminal's control tower will be the highest in the UK.
  
• Around 18km of conveyor belt will be used to transport luggage around the terminal when it opens.
  
• It is the UK's largest ever single site archaeological project, with over 100 hectares of land requiring investigation.

However, Heathrow's owner, BAA, said it expected the new baggage system at T5 to work "perfectly" but admitted other parts of the facility would suffer glitches. (Dan Milmo & Rebecca Smithers, The guardian 14 March 2008).

So there are some doubts that Terminal 5 may not be ready or at its full capacity during its next opening on 27 march.

If it is not sure that the Terminal 5 could receive so much passengers why rushing then?

Here are some opinions concerning the opening of Terminal 5

The future will tell us if Terminal 5 was ready to operate or not...