London Heathrow Terminal 5 started out life as the main British Airways terminal. It was the only terminal at LHR occupied by just a single airline. That changed many years later, when fellow IAG stablemate Iberia moved in as well.
With Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 currently closed at London Heathrow, airlines have obviously been moved around. Lately more and more carriers are relocating into Terminal 5.
London Heathrow Terminal 5 Airlines
It seems the airport is allocating more oneworld alliance airlines to London Heathrow Terminal 5. This makes sense as both British Airways and Iberia are members of the alliance and having them all together will ease connections. Avoiding the dreaded transfer buses at LHR is a good thing.
American Airlines were first to move, in early July. They put together a nice web page showing where their check-in areas are and a handy guide on who can access which lounge.
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- Flight connections in Terminal 5 is fairly striking
Qatar Airways moved in on Monday, 27 July and Japan Airlines from Wednesday, 29 July. Finnair were planning to move as well, even going so far as to amend the terminal on people’s existing bookings, but these have all since reverted back and no further information has come out.
Even non-oneworld airlines are moving in. Next cab off the rank appears to be China Southern which is moving there from 5 August. Perhaps not too much of a surprise as the airline has a joint venture with British Airways.
Overall Thoughts
It will be interesting to see so many different airlines at London Heathrow Terminal 5. The passenger experience will be quite different to what some are used to, especially those Qatar Airways business class passengers used to their salubrious lounge in Terminal 4!
All we need now is for Heathrow Airport to get a lovely drone photograph with all the various airlines at the gates. That would be handy for people like me who are writing about such things!
What do you think about the airlines moving to London Heathrow Terminal 5? Are you happy with this or is this an annoyance for you? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Sunil060902 via Wikimedia Commons.
Flight Connections by Terminal 5 Insider via Wikimedia Commons.
T5 couldn’t handle all of BA’s flights before “The Mess”. Now seems like the best time to get key OW members in T5. Going forward, and hoping for some sort of return to “normal”, BA will see which non-core flights flights are the least connection heavy and keep them at T3 when things settle down. AA/BA/IB are co-locating at JFK’s T8 so this is a long overdue move at LHR.
I’ll be interested to see what happens there. I would expect that American will want to stay in T5, though others such as Cathay Pacific and Qantas with lounges in T3 will probably want to move back. Not that Qantas is even flying internationally right now, but eventually.