A year after its grand opening Terminal 3’s Integrated Baggage facility (T3IB) has revolutionised the way British Airways handles its customers’ luggage. Behind the doors of the giant grey building is a six-storey maze of conveyor belts the size of three football pitches. Bags whizz around overhead, before colleagues carefully stack them in bins ready to be loaded onto aircraft and flown to every corner of the world.
Replacing some of the oldest facilities at Heathrow and bringing them up to 21st century standards wasn’t easy. But the T3IB team rose to the challenge, pioneering brand new technology and innovations in baggage handling, and the new facility was put to the test within six months when British Airways moved operations from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 and handed T3 a series of long haul routes.