British Airways' exclusive £4.3 billion Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport was officially opened by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. Built by airport operator BAA, the new terminal will open for commercial operation on March 27. It can handle up to 30 million passengers in a year. Some 60,000 people have put in a total of 100 million man hours to build the terminal, since the construction began in September 2002.
For constructing the terminal, the project team moved the 900-tonne top cab of a new 87-metre high control tower two km across the airfield, tunnelled over 13 km of rail and baggage links, diverted two rivers and installed over 30,000 sq metres of glass building facades.
The terminal complex features 60 new aircraft stands, two satellite buildings, the second of which will be completed by 2010, new multi-storey car park, rail link to London and extensive landscaping. The Queen opened the airport's first terminal (now called Terminal 2) more than half a century ago in 1955.
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