London Heathrow operator BAA has unveiled plans to demolish the airport’s oldest terminal, T2, and replace it with a new facility to open in 2012 capable of handling 30 million passengers.
The airport operator says it sees the Star Alliance and Virgin Atlantic as the most logical carriers for the new terminal, to be known as Heathrow East.
BAA says that the opening of T5 in 2008, which is to house home carrier British Airways, will provide a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to redevelop the older parts of the airport, which include T1 and T2. The Star Alliance is expected to move into T1 when T5 opens, but is less than thrilled at the prospect of operating in a facility that is increasingly showing its age, while BA moves into a brand-new development.
However, the building of Heathrow East will provide BAA with the option of redeveloping or closing down T1. Star Alliance chief executive Jan Albrecht says: “We await with interest to see what the specific proposals are and we of course must be entirely satisfied that they are comparable with those of our main competitors at Heathrow.”
Virgin Atlantic chief executive Steve Ridgeway adds: “We look forward to seeing BAA develop these proposals and provide the whole airline community and its customers a standard comparable to BA’s new facilities in T5.”
T2 handles around 8 million passengers a year, with carriers such as Air France, Alitalia, Iberia, Lufthansa and Swiss based in the terminal. BAA says the terminal will, however, be underutilised once T5 opens and a game of alliance musical chairs takes place.
Alongside the moves of BA and the Star Alliance, the opening of T5 is expected to see oneworld carriers other than BA move into T3, with T4 serving the SkyTeam Alliance and non-aligned carriers. BAA estimates that Heathrow East will cost between £1 billion ($1.75 billion) and £1.5 billion. It adds that the project will not see any net increase in capacity at the airport.
Source: Airline Business
