Heathrow Airport's new Terminal 5 made the news for all the usual reasons on its opening day: lengthy delays, appalling overcrowding and lost baggage.
This time it was blamed on teething troubles rather than bad weather, terrorist threats or uppity unions that often turn the barely tolerable experience of flight into an ordeal.
Yet when the new terminal, which opened to passengers on Thursday hits its stride the vast $8.5 billion edifice is more likely to be met with an approving nod than the grimaces of its early customers. And the lot of the transatlantic flier in particular may also improve with Sunday's introduction of a long-awaited and hard-negotiated "open skies" deal between the European Union and America.
Northwest Airlines is one beneficiary, now landing its Twin Cities-to-London flights at Heathrow, rather than Gatwick, which is farther from London. Next week, Northwest will launch nonstop Twin Cities-to-Paris service.
The new terminal at London's Heathrow -- the world's busiest international hub -- is for the exclusive use of British Airways (BA), which holds more than 40 percent of take-off and landing slots at Heathrow.
The chaos of the first days of operations will take BA some time to live down. But a fully functioning Terminal 5 will take some strain off the remaining four terminals, so life may grow more bearable for other users too.
Heathrow, the destination for 40 percent of transatlantic flights, is likely to feel many of the immediate effects of the new treaty.
Open skies is the latest attempt to liberalize air traffic between the continents, although the deal is contentious. Some European countries, notably Britain, felt too much was given away to secure American assent to a lifting of regulatory restrictions on transatlantic flights. But the result is an accord that cuts away a thicket of restrictive bilateral deals. New rules let any airline fly between anywhere in Europe and anywhere in the United States.
