Rumours on the opening of Heathrow Terminal 3 and changes at Terminal 5

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• BJ says:

  8 Mar8 March 05:41

  “To reduce pressure on Terminal 5, some British Airways (short haul only) and some American Airlines departures will move to Terminal 3.”

  This is the nightmare scenario resulting from new occupants of T5 being unwilling to moved back out. Transit through T5 is a rotten 1970s airport experience all by itself. However, bad as it is, I hope all BA domestic and international flights will continue to use T5 as the prospect of connecting T5-T3 again is even more horrendous for us connecting passengers.

  • tony says:

    8 Mar8 March 07:01

    But presumably BA would continue to pick the flights with the highest number of O&D passengers for T3? And for anyone transferring, going across the airfield would be infinitely better than having to go to Gatwick. I guess the bit that surprises me is the fact it would be short haul only, although with more passengers on an A321 than a 787, the line is now quite blurred.

  • John says:

    8 Mar8 March 07:39

    My preferred scenario is that BA abandons T5 to other airlines and uses T3 exclusively.

    • Catalan says:

      8 Mar8 March 07:57

      There is no one terminal big enough to handle the entire BA operation

    • ChrisC says:

      8 Mar8 March 08:11

      Why on earth would they do that?

      • John says:

        8 Mar8 March 09:14

        They won’t. But I would still prefer it.

        • ChrisC says:

          8 Mar8 March 09:22

          OK then why would you prefer it?

        • Save East Coast Rewards says:

          8 Mar8 March 10:14

          The only reason to prefer T3 is the lounges and I don’t think the better lounges CX/QF will be open as these airlines aren’t currently operating flights from the UK. So if BA was to operate all their flights (impossible) from T3 they will be using their own lounges which would then be overcrowded as they weren’t designed to be BAs primary lounges.

          I guess another slight benefit is that T3 is closer to London, but that only saves a few minutes

    • Alex Sm says:

      8 Mar8 March 10:42

      They already did it once with T4

      • M says:

        8 Mar8 March 15:26

        BA were never solely in T4. Majority of short haul was in T1

  • Stu N says:

    8 Mar8 March 11:17

    I disagree. Domestic.to Long Haul in T5 was a breeze. Other way was sligthly more faff but still not too bad compared to other Euro hubs. E-Gates and improvements to security made all the difference.

    T5T3 is a bit of a hassle but Cathay lounge made it worthwhile on outbound, at least.

    Who knows what the experience will be like when we are able to travel again…

• JRich says:

  8 Mar8 March 06:42

  Any idea if the Cathay lounge will re-open in June? It’s the best part of T3…

  • Andrew says:

    8 Mar8 March 06:58

    Very very unlikely, along with Qantas lounge it’s likely to remain shut until they both resume flights to LHR which is unlikely to be as soon as June as both Australian and Hong Kong governments are in no hurry to open up. (CX currently only operates inbound flights to LHR)

    • John says:

      8 Mar8 March 07:35

      They would get their US$60 per BA J passenger and US$80 per Emerald from BA though

      • Doug M says:

        8 Mar8 March 11:59

        Where do those numbers come from?

• chris says:

  8 Mar8 March 06:52

  Qatar could presumably twist iag’s arm to use the are Lingus lounge and up the quality

  • chris says:

    8 Mar8 March 06:53

    intellisenseless strikes again … a e r

• Andrew says:

  8 Mar8 March 07:14

  Hopefully the Clubhouse will reopen in June – that new gold card matched from BA is burning a hole in my pocket!

• Meyers says:

  8 Mar8 March 08:21

  Does anyone hold out any hope for BA June flights from Gatwick? i.e. Cagliari / 19th June

  • Anna says:

    8 Mar8 March 12:21

    +1 for July/August? Currently on sale, also from LCY.

• Brad Flack says:

  8 Mar8 March 09:04

  I received a schedule change (pushed back 3 hours) email from Virgin over the weekend for our flights to Atlanta in September.

  Interestingly there’s now no mention of any terminal in the email, nor on my booking on the website.

• George K says:

  8 Mar8 March 09:36

  Any news from the Amex Centurion lounge?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    8 Mar8 March 10:09

    You’d think work could happen much quicker with it being completely closed.

    • Rob says:

      8 Mar8 March 10:42

      I think Heathrow was restricting access to the terminal during closure. I doubt the new Qatar Airways lounge will be ready when T4 reopens for the same reason.

      • George K says:

        8 Mar8 March 12:17

        I didn’t realise Qatar was working on a new T4 lounge. I take it T4 is not reopening this year though…

        • Rob says:

          8 Mar8 March 12:35

          They are expanding it, moving into additional space on one side – not sure which way. I THINK there will be a separate business lounge for status passengers in Economy, instead of sending them to Plaza Premium.

        • Andrew says:

          8 Mar8 March 12:46

          That would make sense given the new unbundled business class fares they are now selling so creating a space for those business class passengers with status and economy with status makes sense (and probably cheaper than paying to send them to Plaza) and the “premium lounge“ will be kept for full fare business class, first class and their own platinum members travelling on unbundled business class and economy.

• Paul says:

  8 Mar8 March 09:38

  “………….the current flight plans by its current occupants, that Terminal 5 could operate safely in August.”

  Not sure this will cause either Heathrow or BA or indeed any airline sleepless nights. Last August, using T5 was unsafe with departures packed into a short period of time, long queues at check in, security and boarding with no attempt at social distancing. Nor was there any staff or functioning hand sanitizers the day I used T5.
  The current wave of massive delays and queues on arrival again show the total disregard the airport and associated authorities have for safety and Covid-19 control measures. There are more controls in schools and offices than at airports and the entire claim of safety is a sham.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    8 Mar8 March 10:10

    I don’t think they mean COVID safety

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