Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 had a turbulent first few weeks, but 100 days after opening is starting to deliver some of the benefits that British Airways hoped it would.

In the first 100 days British Airways looked after almost five million customers travelling through the terminal and has handled more than 38 000 flights. About 87 000 passengers travelling to and from South Africa have used T5 since it opened in March.

After the initial problems British Airways has seen improvements in both punctuality and baggage performance, both of which are now better than before the move to the £4.3 billion terminal.

"We have worked tirelessly to improve every aspect of our operational performance and our customers are seeing the benefits," said Willie Walsh, British Airways’ chief executive.

"Our punctuality and baggage performance levels are significantly improved on this time last year and check-in queues are much reduced."

Queuing times at the airport have been radically reduced with 79 percent of British Airways’ customers saying they queued for less than five minutes at Terminal 5 (data from the British Airways onboard satisfaction monitor 1 May 08 to 31 May 08), a big improvement on the same time last year when only 56% were able to make this claim (data from the British Airways onboard satisfaction monitor 1 May 07 to 31 May 07).

Lin Glass, British Airways General Manager for South Africa, Mauritius and the Seychelles, says she’s been receiving a lot of positive feedback from South African customers.

"The experience of the vast majority of our local customers over the past few months has been good and I’ve been getting a lot of encouraging comment from corporates, individuals and the trade."

The new terminal has allowed British Airways to radically overhaul its airport lounges and this investment has proved popular, with 80% of people who’ve used the Galleries lounges saying they were very satisfied (data from the British Airways onboard satisfaction monitor 1 May 08 to 31 May 08).

British Airways will shortly create a dedicated check-in area for business class customers and open another business class lounge in Terminal 5B.

Additional facilities are also being provided to speed business class customers through ticket presentation as they approach security.

Key Terminal 5 milestones:

  • March 27 – Terminal 5 opens and British Airways’ Johannesburg services begin operating from the new terminal
  • April 18 – Millionth customer uses the terminal
  • May 1 – 4000 shorthaul cabin crew and pilots start to use the terminal as their duty reporting centre
  • June 5 – An additional eight long-haul routes, including Cape Town, move into the terminal. More than 420 flights operate in and out of the terminal on a normal weekday.
  • June 25 – 12 000 long-haul cabin crew and pilots start to use the terminal as their duty reporting centre. The Compass Centre (old crew reporting centre at Heathrow) closes and is handed back to the landlord.
  • September 17 – A further 29 long-haul routes will move from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5, taking the number of flights per day to more than 480.
  • End of October – The final long-haul routes move in and the number of flights per day will grow to about 510.