London Heathrow Airport Information
About Heathrow Airport Facilities
Transport Facilities - London Heathrow Airport has several car parks offering short and long term parking and also a valet parking service. Purple Parking offers airport parking for Heathrow at our car park located at Southall. We operate a Park and Ride service as well as a popular Meet & Greet service. Purple Parking is the biggest independent provider of parking services at the airport. There are three rail stations at the airport. Terminals 4 & 5 have their own stations and the other terminals are serviced by Heathrow Central station. Rail services include the Heathrow Express service to London Paddington. The Heathrow Connect service which calls at all stations between the airport and Paddington. London Underground also connects the airport with central London via the Piccadilly line. The Central bus station is served by many local bus routes as well as National Express services to other airports and destinations across the UK. Licenced Taxi's are available from taxi ranks outside each of the terminals.
London Heathrow Airport provides a wide range of facilities at each of its five terminals for business and leisure travellers including children and disabled passengers.
Business Facilities - There are three executive lounges at Heathrow. There are Servisair Executive Lounges in Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. The KLM Holideck is located at Terminal 4. For a single fee these lounges offer a wide range of complimentary beverages, snacks, newspapers, magazines, television, internet access and work areas. There are also Internet kiosks located in each of the terminals and wireless Internet access is also available.
Leisure Facilities - Each of Heathrow's five terminals have a wide range of shopping and eating facilities both landside and airside. There are also cash facilities, children's play areas, foreign currency exchange, fax facilities, left baggage, lost property, medical help, porters, post facilities, telephones, toilets and trolleys available throught the terminals.
Facilities For Disabled Passengers There are induction loops and payphones adapted for hearing aids in various locations throughout the airport and guide/hearing dogs are allowed into the terminals. There are reserved seating areas in the terminals that have low-level flight information screens, induction loops and spaces for wheelchair users. Most toilet blocks have unisex accessible toilets nearby. The airport's car parks have clearly signed blue/orange disabled badge parking spaces located close to the terminal access routes. Help points are located near these spaces and assistance is free to those with special needs. Finally there is a help bus that operates between the central bus station and all the terminals to assist passengers with reduced mobility.
The History of Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport started life as the Great Western Aerodrome, a small privately owned grass airfield, used largely for test flying. Commercial flights were made from nearby Heston and Hanworth Air Park. In 1944 work started on developing Heathrow as a major transport base for the RAF and when the war ended it was the ideal site for a large airport to serve London.
In 1946, with one runway completed, the site was taken over by the Ministry of Civil Aviation who erected an army surplus tent as a makeshift terminal, next to the aircraft holding area. By 1947 three runways were complete and another three were being built although they were later abandoned as being deemed unnecessary. Pre-fabricated concrete building replaced the tents and by the end of its first year Heathrow was serving 18 destinations and had handled 60,000 passengers.
Early in the 1950's, Heathrow's main airline BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), was joined by BEA (British European Airways) and several other European airlines. In 1955, the first permanent terminal, the Europa Building, was opened along with a traffic Control Tower and the Queen's Building, which provided office space for flight crews, a restaurant and a rooftop viewing area. In addition the main road access tunnel under the northern runway was also opened.
As passenger numbers increased, airport expansion followed. A second terminal, the Oceanic Terminal, was opened in 1961 for long-haul carriers. In 1968, a third Terminal building was opened and named Terminal 1. This completed the cluster of buildings at the centre of the airport. The Europa Building and the Oceanic Terminal were renamed Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 respectively. By this time the airport was handling 14 million passengers each year. The location of the original terminals in the centre of the site has since become a constraint to expansion. The decision to locate them there reflected an early assumption that airline passengers would not require extensive car parking, as air travel was then only affordable to the wealthy, who would often be chauffeur-driven. In 1969 a Cargo terminal was built on the southern perimeter of the airport close to the southern runway, to accommodate Heathrow's growing cargo business. The terminal was connected to the central area by a new road tunnel.
During the 1970's additional car parking space was added and a central area bus station was opened. In 1977, London Underground's Piccadilly Line was extended to the airport. It was the world's first dedicated metro service to a major airport. Continued growth in passenger numbers (30 million annually by the early 1980s), led to the construction of Terminal 4 which was opened in April 1986 and located to the south of the southern runway, next to the existing cargo terminal. It was connected with Terminals 1, 2 and 3 by the already-existing cargo road tunnel.
Purple Parking began offering airport parking at Heathrow in 1990 with our first car park located at Southall. We are now the biggest independent provider of parking services at the airport. In 1994, the Flight Connections Centre was opened. It was the world's first airport building dedicated to serving transfer passengers. The airport reached a milestone when it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996 and two years later in 1998 the Heathrow Express rail link opened connecting the airport with London's Paddington Station.
The new millennium saw the government give Heathrow the green light to build a fifth terminal, with construction starting in 2002. When fully completed in 2011, the terminal will have the capacity to handle 30 million passengers each year. The first phase of the Terminal 5 was completed and opened in March 2008. In January 2009 it was announced by the government that further expansion of Heathrow could go ahead by building a third full-length runway and a sixth terminal.
