Heathrow Terminal 4 | |
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Aerial view of terminal 4
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Location within Greater London
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General information | |
Type | Airport terminal |
Address | Stratford Road, Hounslow, London, TW6 3XA |
Coordinates | 51°27′34″N 0°26′49″W / 51.459455°N 0.446953°W |
Current tenants | SkyTeam Alliance |
Inaugurated | 1 April 1986 |
Renovated | 2009-2017 |
Cost | £200 million |
Technical details | |
Floor area | 105,481 square metres (1,135,390 sq ft) |
Design and construction | |
Architect | Scott Brownrigg & Turner |
Heathrow Terminal 4 is an airport terminal at Heathrow Airport, the main airport serving London, United Kingdom, situated to the south of the southern runway, next to the cargo terminal. It is connected to Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3 by the vehicular Heathrow Cargo Tunnel, and by rail with the Heathrow Terminal 4 Underground station and Heathrow Terminal 4 railway station.
Built at a cost of £200 million, Terminal 4 was opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales on 1 April 1986. Until 2008 it was used mainly by British Airways. It became the Heathrow base for airlines of the SkyTeam airline alliance after British Airways vacated Terminal 4 on 29 October 2009 and moved to Terminal 5.
The terminal was initially designed as a facility for short-haul 'point-to-point' traffic, to compensate for its relatively long distance from the airport's central terminal area (CTA). The layout of the terminal, with passenger boarding gates very close to the check-in and security halls, was designed to facilitate rapid movement of passengers through the building (a requirement for short-haul, business-focused flights). Upon opening, it boasted other innovations including the complete segregation of arriving and departing passengers and a departure concourse over 1⁄3 mile (0.54 km) long.
Lord King, then Chairman of British Airways, demanded that Terminal 4 be solely for the use of British Airways to fulfill the airline's ambition of hosting all its flights in one terminal (an ambition that still has not been achieved even with the opening of Terminal 5 in 2008). A similar demand was made on the North Terminal at Gatwick.