| oneworld airlines move at Stockholm Arlanda and London Heathrow |
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29/10/2009 16:31 (22 Day 11:16 minutes ago) | |||||
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The FINANCIAL -- oneworld member airlines serving Stockholm Arlanda are to transfer their operations to the airport's newly improved and expanded Terminal 5 from Tuesday 24 November.
Meantime, today the alliance's biggest airport co-location project to date reached its final phase, with the last moves of the alliance's member airlines at London Heathrow. All Qantas' operations at the airport and British Airways' Bangkok, Singapore and Sydney services have now switched from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3.
Stockholm Arlanda is served by four of the alliance's carriers - British Airways, Finnair, Iberia and Malév Hungarian Airlines - with some 20 departures a day. All four of them move into the new building at the same time. They are currently housed in Arlanda's Terminal 2.
Their premium passengers - Business Class customers and all Emerald Sapphire tier cardholders in any oneworld frequent flyer programme - will have access to a bigger and better shared lounge, complete with free wifi access for their laptops. They will also be able to use a fast track priority lane through security.
The four on-line oneworld carriers will also share a ticket office and self-service check-in kiosks.
British Airways offers six daily flights from the airport to London Heathrow, Finnair nine to Helsinki, Iberia daily to Madrid and Malév twice daily to Budapest - with the smoothest of onwards connections to the other near 700 destinations served by themselves and their oneworld partners worldwide.
The upgraded Stockholm Arlanda Terminal 5 was completed in April this year, offering passengers more modern and spacious facilities, including a larger departures hall, more check-in desks and kiosks, an improved security clearance area and a wider choice of shops and restaurants. A key benefit is shorter walking distances to and from boarding gates.
It is oneworld's fourth airport co-location project to be completed this year.
The biggest of them - and oneworld's largest such project worldwide to date - is at London Heathrow, completed today with the moves of all Qantas' operations at the airport and British Airways' Bangkok, Singapore and Sydney services from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3.
The project brings the operations of the alliance's eight carriers serving the airport from across all five of its passenger terminals to just two, smoothing oneworld transfer at its biggest European hub.
Finnair and Iberia moved to Terminal 3 earlier this year, along with a number of British Airways' shorthaul routes. Already based in Terminal 3 were all the other oneworld on-line carriers - American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and Royal Jordanian. All BA's other operations are now housed in the new Terminal 5. Terminal 3 is the closest of Heathrow's existing terminals to Terminal 5.
Terminal 3 is nearing the completion of a multi-million dollar up-grade to bring its customer facilities up to a similar standard to those offered at Terminal 5, including a new British Airways lounge facility, whose First Class suite will open when its Sydney flights move there.
Earlier this year, oneworld member airlines brought their operations together at two of the alliance's other European hubs - Barcelona and Helsinki.
At the Spanish city, all the alliance's on-line airlines - Iberia, American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair and Royal Jordanian - are now based in the airport's new Terminal 1.
At the Finnish capital, Finnair and its on-line oneworld partners - British Airways and Malév Hungarian Airlines - are now all housed in Terminal 2, following the opening of its extension for longhaul and non-Schengen services. This makes connecting between flights operated by the alliance's partner airlines more convenient.
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