Airport Information Heathrow

Heathrow Airport, without a doubt is one of the busiest airports in the world.

We set here bits and pieces of Information about Heathrow Airport.

Heathrow Airport is the primary hub of BMI and British Airways, and is a base for Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Heathrow Airport handels almost 67 million annual passengers,the busiest single destination in terms of passenger numbers is New York, with over 3.7 million passengers travelling between Heathrow and JFK / Newark airports.

The airport has five passenger terminals (Terminals 1, 3, 4 and 5) and a cargo terminal , but only four of them are operational for the momemnt as Terminal 2 is closed. The new Terminal 2 is set for reopening on 2014.

Heathrow history is fascinating and it’s design just as much. ,in the 1950s, Heathrow had six runways, arranged in three pairs at different angles in the shape of a hexagram with the permanent passenger terminal in the centre and the older terminal along the north edge of the field, and two of its runways would always be within 30° of the wind direction. As the required length for runways has grown, Heathrow now has just two parallel runways running east–west.

Policing  the airport is not an easy task and responsible to protect  is the aviation security unit of the Metropolitan Police, although the army, including armoured vehicles of the Household Cavalry, has occasionally been deployed at the airport during periods of heightened security. You’ll have the opportunity to see them during the London Olympics 2012 , when security officers will doubled in numbers.

Full body scanners are now used at the airport and passengers who object to their use are not allowed to fly.

Along with the arrays of shops and restaurants, from your daily Costa to the world-known Gordon’s restaurant , from Boots to Ralph Lauren ,Heathrow Airport has Anglican, Catholic, Free Church of Scotland, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh chaplains.

There is a multi-faith prayer room and counselling room in each terminal in addition to St. George's Interdenominational Chapel located in an underground bunker adjacent to the old control tower, where Christian services take place.

Also Heathrow airport has its own resident press corps, consisting of six photographers and one TV crew, serving all the major newspapers and television stations around the world.

Airbridges at Terminal 5Aircraft destined for Heathrow usually enter its airspace via one of four main reporting points: Bovingdon (BNN) over Hertfordshire, Lambourne (LAM) over Essex, Biggin Hill (BIG) over Bromley and Ockham (OCK) over Surrey.

When the airport is busy, aircraft orbit in the associated hold patterns.

Air traffic controllers at Heathrow Approach Control (based in Swanwick, Hampshire) then guide the aircraft to their final approach, merging aircraft from the four holds into a single stream of traffic, sometimes as close as 2.5 nautical miles (4.6 km; 2.9 mi) apart. Considerable use is made of continuous descent approach techniques to minimise the environmental effects of incoming aircraft, particularly at night. Once an aircraft is established on its final approach, control is handed over to Heathrow Tower.

The centralised waiting area is in Terminal 3 because aircraft generate significantly more noise on departure than when landing, there is a preference for westerly operations during daylight. In this mode, aircraft depart towards the west and approach from the east over London, thereby minimising the impact of noise on the most densely populated areas. Heathrow's two runways generally operate in segregated mode, whereby arriving aircraft are allocated to one runway and departing aircraft to the other. For example ,to further reduce noise nuisance to people beneath the approach and departure routes, the use of some runways is swapped at 15:00 each day if the wind is from the west. Occasionally, landings are allowed on the nominated departure runway, to help reduce airborne delays and to position landing aircraft closer to their terminal, thus reducing taxi times.