Queen Opens London Heathrow's Terminal 5

Queen Elizabeth II has officially opened Heathrow Airport's pricey new Terminal 5 Friday, one day after a security scare at the world's busiest international airport.

Officials said the queen's long-planned visit was not likely to be affected by Thursday's arrest of a lone man who ran onto a Heathrow runway carrying a backpack. His bag contained no explosives, police said.

The monarch's decision to open Terminal 5 personally reflects the importance of the new building, which officials believe will reverse the airport's reputation as a rundown, overcrowded facility.

At a high-tech ceremony in keeping with the design of "T5", the queen officially declared the terminal "open for business" as a "21st century gateway to Britain, and the wider world".

Passengers won't actually begin using the shiny new terminal for two more weeks.

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports Queen Elizabeth II was on hand to cut the ribbon when Heathrow opened it's first terminal, in 1955.

The $8.6 billion structure, the cornerstone of the faded airport's revival plan, is designed to alleviate congestion at Heathrow's other terminals, which are all slated for refurbishment or replacement in the coming years.

Construction took more than five years, but airport officials said that it had been completed on time and without the cost overruns that have plagued other recent British mega-projects.

"This is a benchmark for 21st Century terminal design and will be a catalyst for the transformation of Heathrow and confirm its place as the best international travel hub in Europe," said Mike Forster, strategy director at airport operator BAA, which also owns six other British airports. BAA is owned by Spanish construction company Grupo Ferrovial SA.

Officials vowed that the new baggage handling facility and other systems would be in perfect order "on day one" so that the launch of the new terminal would not be bedeviled by the problems that had marred other recent airport openings.

The inefficient baggage handling system at Heathrow's existing terminals has posed a major logjam for travelers, and officials said the new Terminal 5 system will be able to handle 12,000 bags per hour efficiently, without delays.

Still, they acknowledged that unanticipated bugs in the entire terminal system will have to be worked out once actual flight operations begin on March 27.

British Airways will be the only airline using the new terminal. David Noyes, the airline's customer service director, said travelers should be able to spend far less time standing on check-in and security lines than in the past because of new automated systems and added lanes for security processing.

"We expect there to be no more than one person in front of you at the express kiosks and the fast bag drops, so if you have checked in at home, it should take no more than 10 minutes from the time you enter the building to the time you clear security," he said.

The terminal is opening at a time when the British government faces increased opposition from environmental activists and local councils determined to prevent BAA from substantially expanding its Heathrow flight operations by building a third runway.

Barbara Reid, a council member in the borough of Hounslow near the airport, called the public review process a sham.

"We've always felt it was impossible to increase flights by 50 percent without extra noise and air pollution," she said. "It's illogical, and we're the ones who have to live with it."

John Stewart, a spokesman with Stop Heathrow Expansion, said the group objects to the opening of Terminal 5 because the extra terminal capacity would allow BAA to add roughly 80,000 flights per year without building a third runway.

"We believe that the main motivation for building Terminal 5 is to bring in more planes, not to help the travelers have a better experience," he said. "That is our objection."

Mark Bullock, Heathrow's managing director, said the controversy over runway expansion has nothing to do with the construction of Terminal 5.

"The runway debate is quite separate from Terminal 5," he said. "The issue of the third runway has to do with the airport's capacity. Terminal 5 is about alleviating congestion in the terminals."

He said the number of security lanes at the new terminal was increased after the 2005 terrorist attacks on London's transit system.

"There will be about 1,000 BAA staff at the new terminal and of those approximately 660 will be working in security," he said.

Passengers taking domestic flights from the new facility would be required to submit biometric data such as iris scans and fingerprints as part of the security procedures, Bullock said.

That system is already in use at Heathrow's Terminal 1 for domestic passengers who wish to use the international lounge there.