Heathrow Terminal 4
airport terminal at London Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Terminal 4 is an airport terminal at Heathrow Airport, the main airport serving London, England, situated to the south of the southern runway, next to the cargo terminal. It is connected to Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3 by the vehicular Heathrow Cargo Tunnel, and by rail with the Heathrow Terminal 4 tube and Heathrow Terminal 4 railway stations.
The Prince and Princess of Wales opened Terminal 4 on 1 April 1986. British Airways was the main airline operating from the terminal from 1986 until its move to Terminal 5 on 29 October 2009, eventually making Terminal 4 the Heathrow base for airlines of the SkyTeam airline alliance.
History
In 1979, approval for a fourth terminal at Heathrow Airport was granted. The new terminal was built south of the southern runway for £200 million over a 197-acre (80-hectare) site. The Prince and Princess of Wales opened Terminal 4 on 1 April 1986.
Construction
The public enquiry was from May to December 1978. Outline planning permission was given in December 1979. Full planning permission was given in September 1981.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Heathrow Terminal 4” is airport terminal at London Heathrow Airport. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Heathrow, Terminal and airport, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “airport terminal at London Heathrow Airport” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6670470. Authority coordinates are 51.460, -0.448. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986, 2009, 1979 and 1978.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Heathrow Terminal 4”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Heathrow Terminal 4 primary sources, Heathrow Terminal 4 archive and Heathrow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Heathrow Terminal 4”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Heathrow Terminal 4” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.