Heathrow Airport can now cater for an extra three million British Airways customers after a £340 million expansion, it has been revealed.

The new terminal, known as T5 C, will become fully operational from mid-June with 12 boarding gates, of which eight are triple bridges designed to cater for the new 12-strong fleet of Airbus A380 aircraft being used by BA from 2013. 

T5 C will allow passengers to walk directly on and off planes via an ‘air’ bridge linked to the terminal building instead of using a bus service. 

An existing underground transit system, which includes a number of shops for last-minute purchases, links the new terminal with the rest of T5.

There are also further improvements planned at Heathrow with a new dedicated baggage transfer tunnel set to link T5 C and Terminal 3 to increase the speed of transferring luggage. 

BA director of operations Andy Lord said: “Terminal 5 has transformed our ability to offer the very highest standards of customer service which our passengers rightly expect for punctuality, baggage handling and relaxing before their flight. We hope T5 C will improve our overall performance even further.”

More than 70 million customers have used T5 since it opened in March 2008.

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