Six fully serviced aircraft stands were handed over to Heathrow bringing the number of new stands now in early use by the airport up to a total of ten…
Six fully serviced aircraft stands were handed over to Heathrow bringing the number of new stands now in early use by the airport up to a total of ten . This marks the second on-schedule completion of BAA`s five regulatory commitments for the £4.2bn Terminal 5 construction programme.
The six new stands and 120,000 square metres of accompanying taxiway are situated at the western end of Heathrow`s airfield near to Terminal 3 and cover an area equivalent to 17 football pitches. T5`s first four stands were made available to Heathrow in April this year including the airport`s first capable of handling the A380 super-jumbo.
Completing the stands on time and within budget is a further indication that the £4.2 billion scheme is making excellent progress. Significantly, they will allow Heathrow to safeguard service standards at Terminal 3, offset some temporary loss of stand capacity in order to accommodate the now advanced pier extension work underway for the A380`s arrival in 2006, and enable Heathrow to accommodate interim growth prior to Terminal 5`s opening in 2008.
T5 Project Director Andrew Wolstenholme says: “We are delighted to be handing these stands over to Heathrow exactly on schedule, it`s a great achievement for the team. Terminal 5 is now 46 per cent complete and we continue to make excellent progress in hitting our key milestones. Last week the 900-tonne cab section of Heathrow`s new air traffic control tower was successfully transported across the airfield to its final location near Terminal 3 and by January next year the roof of the main terminal will be fully erected and over thirteen kilometres of tunnelling works, including extensions to the Heathrow Express and Piccadilly tube line, will be complete.”
Around 60,000 cubic meters of concrete has been used on the aircraft stands and accompanying taxiway. This concrete has been specially developed over the last three years by Terminal 5`s pavement designers TPS Consult, led by BAA with constructors AMEC so that it is stronger, and therefore capable of handling larger, heavier aircraft, yet can be laid in layers up to 200mm thinner than previous mixes.
With less concrete required, by the time the T5 airfield is complete this will have resulted in up to 27,000 fewer deliveries to the site and the equivalent to a 60,000 tonne reduction in the gasses produced by the cement manufacturing process.
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