How Heathrow’s great reshuffle could work – these are the potential passenger benefits

More than 80 airlines currently using Heathrow Airport are being consulted about possible changes to terminal locations as the airport seeks to maximise its highly constrained facilities.

Airport bosses aim to make the best use of the limited space at Heathrow, to match available capacity with demand and improve resilience.

But airlines have long-standing investments in lounges and other facilities, and like to be grouped with other members of the same alliance: Oneworld, Star or SkyTeam.

The review of operations is the first since 2014, which coincided with the opening of Terminal 2.

Heathrow stresses this is a discussion with airlines, but to help move things along I have identified the ideal solution to one of aviation’s most enduring puzzles. And Rob Burgess, founder of the Head for Points frequent-flyer website, predicts what might happen if Heathrow builds extra terminal space ahead of a third runway.

What’s the terminal situation at Heathrow?

Britain's biggest airport has four terminals. Two of them – T2 and T5 – are fit-for-purpose 21st-century facilities.

The other two are also-rans.

Terminal 3 was begun in 1961 and is well past its best-before date.

Terminal 4 was a 1980s stopgap while waiting for the longest planning inquiry in history, for Terminal 5, to conclude. It is in the wrong place (aircraft using the northern runway have to taxi across the active southern runway), and transport links to the rest of the airport and anywhere else in the civilised world beyond Feltham are dismal.

Whatever happened to T1?

It was closed when T2 opened after rebuilding, but still has a function handling baggage for the newer terminal.

Who's where at the moment?

These are the airlines, together with the percentage of Heathrow passengers at each.

Terminal 5 (40 per cent)

Stronghold for British Airways, but since it opened (rather chaotically) in 2008 T5 has not had enough room for BA’s full Heathrow operation. The airline spills over into Terminal 3.

Terminal 2 (25 per cent)

Fortress Star Alliance, with Air Canada, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines dominant.

It is also home to SAS (now part of the SkyTeam alliance), Aer Lingus, Icelandair, JetBlue, Loganair and Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings.

Terminal 3 (25 per cent)

The old (1961) “Oceanic Terminal” is mainly Oneworld (American Airlines, British Airways spillover, Cathay Pacific, Iberia and Qantas), but with added Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic (SkyTeam) – and home to Emirates, with six mighty Airbus A380 aircraft shipping almost 3,000 passengers a day to Dubai.

Terminal 4 (10 per cent)

A right muddle, It is partly SkyTeam (Air France, ITA), partly Oneworld (Malaysia Airlines, Royal Air Maroc and Qatar Airways), the Abu Dhabi carrier Etihad, plus a veritable United Nations of non-aligned airlines including Air Algerie, Air Astana, Air Serbia, Azerbaijan Airlines, Biman Bangladesh, Bulgaria Air, China Southern Airlines, KM Malta Airlines, Kuwait Airways, El Al, Etihad Airways, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Tunisair, Uzbekistan Airlines, Vueling (sister of British Airways) and WestJet.

What’s the solution?

I have considered the big pieces first. Looking at numbers provided by Heathrow airport for terminal use, happily there is a clear path to making everything run better, with a more even spread of flights and passengers through the day.

Not every airline, though, will be overjoyed – and I sense BA might be upset at my recommendations.

Terminal 5

The biggest terminal should be split between Star Alliance and Skyteam. My calculation is that they should fit (and coexist) comfortably in terms of flights and passenger numbers.

They would need to do something about the enormous “Welcome to Our Home” British Airways sign, though.

Terminal 2 and 3

American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Iberia and Qantas stay put – and are joined by the entire British Airways operation, spread across both terminals.

Crucially, they are close together in the Central Terminal Area. Anyone who has walked from T3 to the Underground station has covered almost all the ground to T2, and anyone who has walked from T2 to the Heathrow Express/Elizabeth line station is almost in T3.

I calculate there will be room for Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways and Royal Air Maroc to move across from T4, as long as Aer Lingus and Eurowings are kicked out.

Terminal 4

T4 needs its schedule beefed up with more daily flights and a better spread across the day. So make it the main point-to-point terminal, as the architects intended. That means Aer Lingus, Eurowings, Icelandair, Jet2 and Loganair move in alongside the existing airlines (which will be slightly depleted by the move of Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways and Royal Air Maroc).

The last piece in the jigsaw is the giant Emirates – joining a couple of its Middle East rivals, Etihad and Gulf Air at Terminal 4. Emirates is a point-to-point airline in the Heathrow context, with almost all passengers beginning or ending their journeys at the London airport. With daily flights linking Dubai with Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well, there is no need for British passengers to transfer at Heathrow.

Emirates’ six daily departures are spread from 9am to 10.30pm. Stands will need to be improved for the A380 “SuperJumbo”. A special dispensation for A380s serving T4 to be allowed to land and take off from the southern runway will help with operations.

They would need to move the enormous Emirates Airbus A380 model from the roundabout leading to the Central Terminal Area, mind.

What’s in it for passengers?

Most of the benefits will accrue to transit travellers – particularly those travelling with a Oneworld airline, who faced some tricky connections at present. By bringing each airline alliance together, transfers will be faster and smoother. This will make Heathrow a much more attractive hub for overseas passengers.

British Airways and its passengers who begin or end their journeys in London may be dismayed at the prospect of leaving T5 for T2 and T3. But the central area has better surface connections, including twice as many Tube and Elizabeth line services to and from the city centre.

What about future expansion?

Heathrow airport plans extending both Terminal 2 and Terminal 5. Rob Burgess looks ahead to a point when there is more terminal space but not yet a third runway.

"Virgin Atlantic is desperate to go to T2 as chief executive Shai Weiss has said many times. This is possible with the extension but blows up any chance of a SkyTeam terminal.

“Logically you want Virgin and Delta with Air France, KLM and SAS to enable quick connection from long haul to short haul. Virgin Atlantic and Delta in T2 would probably scupper this unless those three moved too, but will the extension create capacity for that?

“BA in a perfect world would leave T3, as would American, and go into, say, T5D if the fourth satellite ever got built. At present the BA flights in T3 are those which are mainly point to point with little connecting traffic.

"There's also a question of whether you'd ever want pre-clearance for US flights. Could you build a T5D and put all BA and AA US flights there with pre-clearance? But what happens to Virgin and Delta who would want to use it too?

“With a T2 and T5 extensions but no third runway, I am guessing T4 could be closed with T3 becoming the remnants, T2 being Star and SkyTeam (or at least the SkyTeam transatlantic joint-venture partners) and T5 taking all of BA and AA.”

Could Terminal 4 really close?

Yes – during Covid T4 was mothballed, and with only 10 per cent of current Heathrow passengers, airlines could be accommodated in expanded terminals. But Rob Burgess says: “Oddly, whilst T4 is a bit of a dump these days, it is so quiet (not much more than 50 flights per day last time I counted) that it is a uniquely pleasurable experience.

“It even has decent shopping because of Qatar and Etihad passengers going through it.”