London Heathrow Airport (LHA/EGLL) Terminal 5, United Kingdom

The construction of the Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (T5) in London was approved by the Secretary of State on 20 November 2001, after the longest public inquiry in British history (46 months).

The planning process itself cost nearly £63m over a period of 14 years. This cost was borne mostly by the British Airports Authority (BAA) and British Airways, the two main proponents of the project.

In 2007 it was announced by the Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly that there would be a sixth terminal at Heathrow as well as a 2,200m third runway and this will be underway by 2020. Public consultation on the proposed project is currently underway.

Construction of the new terminal started in September 2002; phase one of the project was completed and opened in March 2008 with the second phase opening in 2011. The project required an estimated investment (mostly from BAA) of over £4.2bn.

Phase two of the project will involve the construction of a £400m second satellite terminal building adjacent to the original T5 and also the associated aircraft stands and service infrastructure to accept A380 size superjumbos.

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in Europe and passenger numbers are expected to grow by 27 million a year as a result of phase one, and then by a further three million a year after phase two. The airport currently employs 68,000 personnel and expects to increase this by 16,500 as a result of the expansion.

The T5 retail floor space covers around 18,580m². It includes 150 retail units including around 25 restaurants and approximately 3,250m² of duty free shopping.

Terminal 5 contractors

Terminal 5 was a large infrastructure project involving over 60 contractors, 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects on a 260ha site. With such a project BAA realised that if the projects were to be built on time and within budget that a unique approach would be required.

The T5 Agreement was the result and is a legally binding contract between BAA and its key suppliers. Through the agreement BAA accepted that it carried all of the risk for the construction project. This allowed the contractors to concentrate on the project and solving problems rather than avoiding possible litigation for problems arising and time delays.

Terminal and control tower

By November 2006 the construction of T5 was 80% completed. Ten new aircraft stands had been delivered (four capable of handling the new A380 superjumbo) along with 120,000m² of taxiway.

Two of the major projects which were ahead of schedule included the new terminal building itself and the new aircraft control tower. In April 2004 the first section of the 'single wave' roof (2,500t) of the T5 building was lifted into position and by March 2005 the sixth and final section of the roof was in position. The final roof weighed a total of 18,500t and contained 22 steel box section rafters supported by 11 pairs of supporting abutments.

The main terminal building (housing concourse A) is 396m long, 176m wide and 39m high and contains 80,000t of structural steel, while a satellite building (housing concourse B) adjoining this is 442m long, 42m wide and 19.5m high. The terminal contains 175 lifts, 131 escalators and 18km of conveyor belts for baggage handling. A strict ban was placed on any construction activity over 43m high without prior arrangement in case it interfered with Heathrow radar.

Phase one of the project provides 47 aircraft stands and phase two will provide a further 13 to make a total of 60.

In October 2004 the 900t, 32m-high top 'cone' section of the control tower was transported 2km to the installation site following its construction within the Heathrow site. In April 2005 the new air traffic control tower was topped out and in March 2005 the control tower was erected to its full height of 87m.

The cone, which contains the control room, is supported on top of an 85m-high, 4.6m-diameter triangular steel mast anchored to the ground with three pairs of cable stays. The steel mast contains two lifts (one internal and one external) to provide access to the control room. The control tower was built in 12m-high sections (the cone being raised by special jacks 12m at a time) and became operational during the third quarter of 2006.

Rail infrastructure development

Beyond the construction of the terminal itself, investment has been required in order to improve the transport infrastructure between the centre of London and Heathrow Airport. Some of the major projects were the construction of tunnels for the extension of both the Heathrow Express (HexEx) and the Piccadilly Line (PiccEx).

In September 2004 the HexEx tunnel was connected with T5 for the first time after four and a half months of tunnelling with a tunnel boring machine (TBM). The tunnel connection was made with a spur tunnel (headshunt) connected to the existing Heathrow Express. The tunnel was lined with 1,419 pre-cast concrete rings containing polypropylene fibre for fire resistance. There are two 1.7km tunnels for the HexEx and two 1.9km tunnels for the PiccEx.

Terminal 5 has its own modern rail station located in the basement of concourse A. The station has six rail platforms: two for the London Underground Piccadilly Line extension; two for the Heathrow Express extension, and a third pair built for potential future rail expansion links to the west.

The T5 station is staffed by BAA staff unlike the underground stations at Heathrow Terminal 4 and Terminals 1 to 3 and was completed in March 2008. There are currently no plans to connect Terminals 4 and 5 by a direct rail service.

Road infrastructure development

The T5 expansion also required additional and improved road infrastructure, including internal airside roads (completed in March 2005) and also connecting roads from the current road transport network. A spur road from the M25 contructed by Balfour Beatty opened in April 2008 and the road around the western perimeter of the Heathrow site was realigned to provide improved access.

By January 2005 over 13km of tunnels had been completed. Four tunnel boring machines and 105,500 concrete tunnel lining segments were used to create a network of nine separate tunnels including the UK's seventh-longest road tunnel and four independent rail tunnels.

In addition to a growth in the transport capacity servicing Heathrow Airport, BAA also developed a 4,000-space multi-storey car park for passenger use.

Road vehicle access

An airside road tunnel (ART), which became operational in March 2005, provides road vehicle access from the central terminal area to aircraft stands at the western end of the airfield and T5 campus. It is an airside road and so is not accessible to the general public.

The 6.2km ART consists of two parallel single carriageways with a hard shoulder in two separate tunnel bores. Each tunnel has an internal diameter of 8.2m, which is the equivalent width of two fire engines, and is connected via a series of cross passages designed to ensure the safe evacuation of vehicles or people in the event of a vehicle accident in either tunnel.

Automated people mover

The new T5 also incorporates a track transit system. This is an automated transportation system that transfers passengers between the main terminal and its satellite buildings. Transportation is provided by an automated people mover (APM). These are driverless trains which run on a dedicated subsurface guideway.

Storm water outfall tunnel (SWOT)

The storm water outfall tunnel (SWOT) forms the drainage and pollution control system for surface water run-off from the T5 campus, to a reservoir 2km to the south of the airport. At the southern end of the tunnel the run-off water passes through facilities that 'clean' it before it is discharged.

The SWOT is also a fundamental component in enabling BAA to recycle the run off water and re-use it in T5's non-potable water system. The tunnel and infrastructure has been designed so that in T5's operational phase, clean water is pumped back up the tunnel and used in systems such as toilet flushes and heating systems. The SWOT comprises a single bore tunnel, 4.1km in length.

Water course modification at the Heathrow site has also involved the diversion of two man made 'rivers' (built during the reign of both Henry VIII and Charles I to supply water to various Palaces) (twin rivers diversion scheme) into new channels.

Congestion, noise and air pollution

It was expected that the number of people using cars, taxis, buses and coaches in and out of Heathrow would more than double once T5 became operational. This does not take into account extra lorries and other heavy goods vehicles travelling in and out to service the airport on roads that are already three times busier than the national average.

In 1991, approximately 13.8 million people travelled to Heathrow by car and 5.8 million by taxi. By the year 2016, when BAA expects T5 to be fully operational, the figures are estimated to increase to 28.1 million by car and 11.9 million by taxi. Another obvious problem associated with the increase in traffic in the area is a worsening of noise and air pollution.

Advocates of T5 countered that the increase in the capacity of Heathrow will make best use of airport's existing infrastructure and land (nearly 3,000 acres).

They claimed that a failure to develop the site would lose Britain over £600m a year in export earnings. Once lost, that trade would be unlikely to return, and it is thought that the UK economy will have felt the impact as foreign investment drifted to Europe (particularly as European airports such as Charles De Gaulle in Paris, Hamburg and Schipol in Amsterdam are trying to attract business from Heathrow).

Additionally, the noise climate around Heathrow Airport has been improving for many years, even though the number of aircraft movements has increased considerably. This improvement is continuing, but is inevitably slowing down as older, noisy aircraft have now been phased out. Advocates claimed that even with Terminal 5, the noise climate would be similar to today because it would not require any increase in night flights or in the night noise quota at Heathrow.

The reason why these extra passengers can be accommodated with so few additional flights is that the number of passengers per flight is increasing all the time. The development of aircraft such as the Airbus A380 superjumbo, a 555-seater, double-decker aircraft, will reinforce this trend.

Check-in

T5 will rely much more on passengers using online check-in or self-service kiosks when they reach the airport. To this end there are 96 self-service kiosks, 140 customer service desks and 96 fast bag drops.

Passenger flows have been optimised so that queuing at the airport will be kept to a minimum. British Airways have plans to move towards 80% of its passengers using online or self-service check-in.

Baggage handling systems

The baggage handling system at T5 is the largest baggage handling system in Europe for a single terminal. There will be two systems including a main baggage sorter and a fast track system.

The system was designed by an integrated team from BAA, BA and Vanderlande Industries of the Netherlands, and will handle both intra-terminal and inter-terminal luggage and will actually process 70,000 bags a day.

Bags undergo several processes on the way through the system including automatic identification, explosives screening, fast tracking for urgent bags, sorting and automatic sorting and passenger reconciliation.

T5 opening day

New airport terminals are usually plagued by faults and problems within the first couple of days of opening and T5 was no exception. Despite running a six-month trial, requiring the use of 16,000 volunteers to put every aspect of the terminal to the test from parking and toilets to check-in and seating, the terminal experienced a host of major problems on day one.

On the first day of operations staff experienced difficulty getting through security into the building, once there they had navigational problems, and delays were compounded by a lack of available car parks.

For passengers, staff unfamiliarity with the check-in system led to flight delays, which in turn overloaded the baggage handling system. The end result was the cancellation of over 300 flights and the mishandling of thousands of items of luggage. The debacle cost BA at least £16m, and resulted in the resignation of two senior managers.

T5 was branded a 'disaster' by government ministers, with the Commons Transport Select Committee launching and enquiry. The subsequent transfer of long haul flights from T4 was delayed. All BA flights are now not expected to fly from T5 until the end of October, rather than April, as originally scheduled.

Heathrow third runway

In January 2009 a third runway at Heathrow received government approval after months of debate and controversy. The government wants BAA to open the runway to serve the airport's expansion as soon as possible and definitely before 2020. It is commonly thought that a planning application will be made in 2010 and construction could start as early as 2012.

Over 50 businesses support the plan but it always faced fierce opposition from environmentalists and if the Conservative Party gets elected at the next election they have pledged to scrap the plans.