British Airways (BA) will this month start end-to-end testing of the IT infrastructure at the £4.4bn Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5).

With less than a year before the terminal opens for business next March, BA says installation is on track, and in some cases ahead of schedule.

Part of the work has been completed early by airport operator BAA, such as the IT network that will form the backbone of the terminal connecting two primary data centres and 66 secondary communication centres.

BA, which will be the sole tenant of the terminal, is installing more than 9,000 connected devices, 2,000 laptops and 1,600 IP phones now that BAA has started handing over areas of the building to the airline.

‘The T5 network is hooked into Heathrow’s core network, which connects all five terminals into the data centres,’ said BA information management programme head Glenn Morgan.

‘This means that some areas of the terminal are already connected and live.’

One such area is the bespoke IT testing centre, which allows BA to rigorously assess the 160 IT systems that will underpin its operations.

The airline is testing individual applications, and later this month will start testing end-to-end technology, from check-in systems to baggage handling, self-service kiosks, operating systems and back-office applications.

‘We will take a thin slice across the system and test the whole transaction process,’ said Morgan. ‘This will continue until September when we will begin six-month proving trials.’

The airport control centre will also be based at T5, and the terminal’s systems and applications will manage all Heathrow’s operations, from moving aircraft around the airport, to communication between ground and flight crews and aircraft parking.

‘It will go live at the end of the year and run in parallel with the control centre until the switchover in March,’ said Morgan.

BA will test the centre and other systems for six months before recruiting 16,000 people to act as passengers and test every aspect of the building in the six months before opening.

Many of the IT systems have been designed to improve the flow of passengers through the terminal. Testing will enable BA to identify the busiest areas and improve the systems to reduce bottlenecks, says Morgan.

BA is under pressure to ensure that IT systems are working from day one, says Datamonitor lead analyst Alex Kwiatkowski.

‘We have seen the chaos caused by new security measures and weather problems and the last thing BA wants is to frustrate passengers further because systems do not work properly when T5 opens,’ he said.

‘This is a high-profile project and the transition from no passengers to 30 million passengers annually will happen overnight, so the fact it is testing so far in advance is significant.’

BA will have developed simulations, scenarios and models of customer behaviour and traffic patterns to ensure it is in a state of readiness for opening, he says.

Terminal 5... in 30 seconds

• Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) is one of Europe’s largest construction and IT projects.
• It is the largest free-standing building in the UK, measuring 396 metres in length by 176 metres wide, and roofs a total area across all floors equivalent to the size of 55 football pitches.
• When it opens on 27 March 2008 it will handle 30 million passengers annually. This will make Terminal 5 alone one of the 10 largest airports in Europe.
• The baggage system is the largest, single-terminal baggage handling system in Europe.
• Using sophisticated technology, the baggage handling system is designed to cope with 12,000 suitcases an hour on 18km of conveyor belts.
• BA is installing 160 computer systems, 9,000 connected devices, 2,000 desktops, 1,600 IP telephones and 600km of network cabling, making it the largest IT and integration project the airline has been involved in.