Press gets first look at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5

Although London Heathrow’s huge new Terminal 5 project won’t open until late March, reporters last week got an advance tour of the facility. Terminal 5, or T5, is an $8 billion project that will serve as the new home for British Airways’ hub operation at LHR. It’s set to open March 27. The U.K. newspaper The Guardian’s called T5, designed by architect Mike Davies, “an architectural and engineering tour de force that raises the standards of British airport design by 100 percent.” Marveling at the 40-meter-high ceiling, huge all-around windows with a view of Windsor Castle and 22 “mighty white steel trees” that support the roof, The Guardian called T5 “one of the most breathtaking man-made spaces in modern Britain.” At 396 meters long and 176 wide, the building is big enough that you could fit “three Empire State Buildings on their sides into the luggage retrieval hall alone,” the newspaper noted. The terminal will be linked by an underground transit system to the first of two planned satellite terminals; the second will be ready in 2011. Also below the terminal are stations for London’s Piccadilly Line tube service and Heathrow Express trains. A new road connects T5 directly to the M25 expressway. T5 will have more than 100 retail shops and restaurants, ranging from low-cost eateries to a Gordon Ramsey outlet called Plane Food – but notably, the reviewer said, the terminal will contain “no McDonald’s, no stench of fast food.” An Associated Press report said that T5 will have “state-of-the-art equipment such as X-ray machines that don’t require travelers to remove their shoes and belts. Unmanned check-in kiosks can also screen a passenger’s passport or scan a visa.” The first class and business class lounges in the new terminal are “unusually spacious, have a spa and are luxuriously furnished with chandeliers, wine racks and, in one, even a cinema,” AP said.