Heathrow Airport's new Terminal 2 welcomed its first passengers on Wednesday, with the arrival of 17 United Airlines flights and about 6,000 passengers. T2, also called the Queen's Terminal, is opening slowly after the London airport witnessed a nightmare in 2008 with the opening of Terminal 5.
"It's a very sensible thing to do to start with a phased rollout," said Heathrow chief executive-in-waiting John Holland-Kaye. "They're big airlines. These are the lessons we took from T5." The airport's announcement of the opening said they are expecting "some teething problems in the first few days."
Holland-Kaye has been carrying a copy of a committee report about the problems with T5 to remind him of what could go wrong, The Guardian reports.
Terminal 2 has been in development for the past five years, with a total cost of the construction is $4.2 billion. To put that in perspective, the new Tom Bradley International Terminal now under construction at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is estimated to cost a total $1.9 billion.
The $4.2 billion price tag resulted in a terminal that will handle 332 daily flights to 54 destinations around the globe.
Wednesday's opening is more of a trial run than a grand debut: The official opening will be on June 23, when Queen Elizabeth II will visit the airport. An interactive map helps passengers get familiar with T2's layout.
Air Canada will be the second airline operating out of the airport. By the end of the year, a total of 26 carriers will take passengers in and out of Terminal 2. Once the terminal is in full use, more than 20 million passengers will pass through each year.
