Terminal provides hope for struggling airport

By airport operator BAA's own admission, Heathrow has been struggling to cope with soaring passenger numbers "for years".
At present an airport designed to handle 45 million passengers a year is having to contend with more than 68 million.
The opening of Terminal 5 (T5) will help, as it will be able to cater for 30 million passengers a year and pave the way for Heathrow to handle 95 million customers annually.
But even with T5, Heathrow has to move on. From March 30, the EU-USA transatlantic "open skies" deal comes into effect allowing more airlines to use Heathrow for flights between Europe and America.
Airlines will still have to secure take-off and landing slots at Heathrow but open skies means the west London airport becomes an even more desirable transport hub.
And despite the doom and gloom about the credit crunch, travellers are showing no signs of wanting to cut down on air journeys.
All this means that Heathrow is looking to expand even further in a move that could lead to passenger numbers almost doubling to 122 million passengers a year by the third decade of this century.
To the alarm of those anti-growth groups who were told there would never be a fifth terminal, a sixth terminal is now being envisaged to go with a third, short, runway.
The Government has just finished a consultation on the expansion which envisages a 2,200 metre-long third runway built north of Heathrow by 2020 as well as a sixth terminal.
In the meantime, BAA is investing more than £2 million a day to transform Heathrow.
The oldest passenger building - Terminal 2 - will be demolished. The terminal - and Terminal 1 - will be replaced with a new terminal in a project called Heathrow East.
Until then, the arrivals area and immigration hall at Terminal 1 are being upgraded and improvements are being made to the check-in area.
Terminal 3 has already seen improvements to its forecourt and the interior is also set for refurbishment, while upgrades and improvements are also being carried out at Terminal 4.
While anti-expansion demonstrators bemoan the steady growth at Heathrow, the pro-airport lobby points out that the west London airport is actually serving fewer destinations than it did some years ago.
Those in favour of expansion say a strong, growing Heathrow is good for London, for Britain and the economy. Stagnation at Heathrow, they argue, will mean the UK will miss out to continental rivals such as Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam as a tourist and business hub.

By Peter Woodman, PA Air Correspondent