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Heathrow's Terminal 5 has expanded with a £340 million terminal for an extra three million British Airways customers.

Known as T5 C, the new terminal becomes fully operational in mid-June and will allow passengers to walk directly on and off aircraft under a?covered?'air' bridge linked to the terminal building instead of using a bus.

The new terminal has 12 boarding gates, of which eight are triple bridges designed to cater for the new 12-strong fleet of Airbus A380 aircraft joining BA from early 2013.

The terminal, which is linked with the rest of T5?by the existing underground transit system, includes a range of shops for last-minute purchases.

Next year a new dedicated baggage transfer tunnel linking T5 C and Terminal 3 will open to improve the speed of tranfering luggage between terminals.

BA director of operations Andy Lord said: "Terminal 5 has transformed our ability to offer the very highest standards of customer service which our passengers rightly expect for punctuality, baggage handling and relaxing before their flight. We hope T5 C will improve our overall performance even further."

More than 70 million customers have used T5 since it opened