Monitoring The Traffic Of People That Go Through Heathrow | Britain's Busiest Airport | Spark

[Music] [Music] london heathrow gateway to the world heathrow is a huge melting pot one of the biggest hubs in the world flying to 194 destinations in 82 countries [Music] singapore which class [Music] so the front the size of a small city it's europe's busiest airport expecting four to five thousand passengers especially one and a half hours as heathrow gets ready to build its third runway this year is said to be the airport's busiest with more than 76 million passengers [Music] meaning to stay on schedule a plane has to take off or land every 45 seconds we're busy all the time it's relentless we're gonna have trouble right we've got trouble operating at full capacity there's no room for error this is a disgrace even the smallest problem can cause chaos and cost the airport and airlines millions of pounds in fines and lost revenue [Music] every minute every second here is money but working against the clock there's an army of staff we're going to try our best to get you there from plumbers starting to get that little smell of sewage now to pilots they're just such pretty machines and specially trained police until we've left the plane you cannot leave the plane yourselves all battling to keep britain's busiest air force [Music] flying one of the world's biggest airports [Music] heathrow is the size of almost 2 000 football pitches [Music] its size could make it challenging for connecting passengers so come down this way let's go use the other queue as well jawad is a passenger experience manager it's his job to keep passengers flying heathrow is one of the busiest hubs in the world when it comes to connecting passengers our connection project is so big that we have up to 24 million passengers every year these 24 million passengers neither start nor end their journeys at heathrow they pass through on connecting flights london heathrow has so many destinations where they fly out too a lot of people connect through us and then might not be a popular destination there could be just one flight a day they have and if they miss that flight that's it they're not going to be going on for the next 24 hours jawad is on his way to meet 72 chinese tourists who must transfer to a connecting flight to lisbon once the flight lands passengers will start coming up i'm going to try to get hold of the leader first to see if they can speak english the clock is ticking they only have 90 minutes to make the connection which at heath rowe is very tight lisbon madame yeah adding to the pressure the group has to be split in two half are staying in terminal three and the other half are flying out of terminal two a mile away so what we need to do is we've got to make sure you get on to the right flight do you know you read you have been rebooked onto two different flights two different varieties flights from two different terminals yeah they tell me just one no no so this is the list we've got okay so you've got this list missed connections can lead to flights being delayed and airlines can end up facing hundreds of thousands of pounds in knock-on costs so we've got 37 passengers going to terminal 2 and we've got passengers flying up for terminal 3. so it's quite confusing i mean i feel sorry for them but let's see what we can do and make sure they have a smooth track transition from here [Music] i just want to make sure they are all with these five actually not going to the wrong game yeah sure no no because this lady don't rush about five minutes give me more five minutes more yeah but they haven't got long they haven't got long that's what they say yeah yeah there's no need to get there jawad needs to get the passengers moving to terminal two or they risk missing their connecting flight [Music] heathrow is on the front line of counter-terrorist measures with over 200 000 passengers every day the airport must be kept safe the threat to uk mainland is deemed as severe which means an attack is highly likely i think sadly this is the world that we live in now and i don't think that is ever going to change around the clock a team of police officers and sniffer dogs patrol every inch of the airport in search of explosives [Music] liz is a police dog handler and works at the airport with dog buster [Music] we search everywhere in the airport with the dogs anywhere where anything could be secreted or left and yeah so the dogs will go absolutely everywhere in the airport today explosive materials have been hidden in the airport liz buster and colleagues rick and paddy must hunt them down as part of an exercise they will literally search and find microscopic particles of the substances they're looking for their receptors in their nose are just thousands and thousands of times stronger than their human nose they will smell things that we have no chance of smelling at all [Music] buster is trained to find military homemade and commercial explosives and if anything is out of the ordinary to him then buster will have his own unique indication that me and him are sort of trained that i know that that's what he's doing to alert me that there is a problem buster they're looking for drugs explosives paddy's just searching lots of bags at the moment he's not indicating on any you've hit the bag straight away boy you clever boy good boy good luck that's because the scent picture of this explosive here has become quite large as it's been sitting there for about five minutes and the the noses on these dogs are so extraordinary that he's been able to pick it up instantly with national security on such high alert all information related to terrorist activity is highly classified i can't tell you what we've found in the past that information is just between me and [Music] paddy [Music] in terminal 3 jawad has 90 minutes to get a group of chinese tourists onto two different connecting flights in different terminals [Music] thank you thank you [Music] oh you're happy people despite the photography session if the group don't leave now they risk missing the flight someone stand here can speak four languages but mandarin isn't one of them they're finding out sir finding out you stay here you stay here the concern we've got now is this one group needs to leave now so they haven't got very long for a flight in terminal 2. the first group are ready to set off i will call terminal 2 to tell them they're coming so they will make sure they get on the flight yeah okay and they'll call me once they're on the fly they call me and i'll tell you that they're on the flight okay the flight uh for the 1830 right so they've only got about i said 45 minutes to get to terminal through go through security go and get to the gate so they are quite yeah can you stand by the first group are finally on their way if they don't get to terminal two's gate in time they'll be sleeping at heathrow george we've got a group of 38 coming through your security night we should be hitting you next couple of minutes [Music] heathrow has almost 200 gates within four terminals spanning more than two miles which can make fast connections difficult echo three oscar seven jewett has sent half a chinese tour group racing from terminal 3 to terminal 2 and he's hoping they make their flight they've already gone through security i'm just about to reach a desk oh brilliant that's really good then so yeah you were we're 15 minutes ahead i know um so i think we're gonna make it well done thank you maria [Music] thank you so they've done it they made it let me just tell the team leader jawad has stayed with the second group and tour leader in terminal 3. give you an update all your staff are going through flight connections in terminal 2. so they've got there so they're just about to board the flight so okay they're on their own oh thank you so much the joy of working at heathrow because you get that fulfillment speaking to tim the team leader as well who said that he thought hebrew was great and the amount of selfies had to have i didn't realize how popular i am so hopefully next time you go to china i might have my posts a big poster on the wall like saying hey welcome to israel all that remains is to see the rest of the territory onto their nice meeting flight all thank you very much [Music] is this the real life is this just bad to see there are 500 miles of pipes underneath heathrow looking after them tonight the water engineers vic scott and john [Music] oh it's almost midnight and the team are on their way to clean heathrow's biggest sewage pit all the waste from terminal 5 ends up in this single chamber 40 feet below ground it can hold two million liters of sewage which is constantly being pumped out by three electrical pumps there's not been little tropics nice and steamy you know what i mean not been in jungle well my lights have arrived now they've gone off again they've gone off again they're on again that's it today scott has drawn the short straw it's his turn to clean the sewage pumps i've just been to the toilet so i'll try and imagine it as my own it's never as bad if it's your own brand shift boss james is overseeing the operation making sure scott will be safe in the chamber so we've pumped the pit down as far as we can that's when scott go in it's not too deep it's not too hard to move around an alarm will sound when scott's air supply runs low right you know it sounds like the alarm you hear it going off with it's from stage one or stage two doesn't matter you get out all right i want to get going run out of time the job is done overnight when the airport is quiet to avoid scott being hit by fresh sewage flowing into the chamber on free fall free fall arrester scott has just 30 minutes of air in his tank to protect him from toxic gases [Music] failure to clean and maintain these pumps could mean all the waste backs up and floods terminal five pumps looking good condition all the pipe work mechanical work that's in good condition scott's down there at the moment he'll be coming out and that might be it so we'll see how it goes hopefully start with a lot with only seconds of air left scots makes it out of the chamber that's actually timed perfectly as you can see it's all finished now perfect really good job with that you get a massive sense of achievement there's a sparkling clean there's nothing left in there now and the pumps will turn perfectly the whole isolated locked off i've spin all the impellers it was really good i need to really need to itch my nose really badly but i just can't do it [Music] with flights arriving from 194 destinations heathrow is britain's largest port of entry for new immigrants today syrian refugee muhammad is waiting for his wife and two young children this moment today is the day i was looking for for a year and a half i've got two children i left them when they were very very young last year in britain just over 7 000 asylum cases like muhammad's were granted the situation in syria was getting worse day by day war planes is bombing every minute you could be dead any moment i had no choice but to leave my country so that i can save my two kids i said i will make a better life for them in europe i moved through turkey across many eastern european countries like greece macedonia france and then staying in the jungle sleeping next to the roads after 10 days i managed to get on a train and get down to the uk here after a year and a half of being apart visas for his wife and two children have finally been granted let's donate [Music] oh i'm very very happy i waited long nights and long days to get my family to a safe country to see them how they go to school to live a life which is not dangerous [Music] i left him when he was one and a half years old [Music] look at me he remembers me you believe it [Music] the first ever commercial flight to take off from heathrow was in 1946. since then five terminals have been built and the oldest is terminal three [Music] hi hey today it's terminal 3's 55th birthday so in 1961 this terminal was officially opened uh so during my shift sometime when i get a break i'm probably going to be going through this it's how you feel when it's your birthday so you have that special feeling when you're walking around that is my birthday so it's going to be that it was going to be feeling like that but jawad will have to wait to get his teeth into the cake something much less appealing needs his attention oscar to oscar 86 okay i'm standing in zone g at the moment there's a very foul smell coming do you know anything about it anything you'd be faulted you know what i was gonna ask to come down with me and have a sniff around there when he comes in that is horrific down there i thought it may have been my nose or something but if you could smell it then i'll fault it copy it it's not very pleasant for anybody to be honest when passages are coming through it's not a good experience for them oh god this is bad okay [Music] heathrow relies on a team of 28 water engineers who are on call 24 7 to keep the airports plumbing in check today it's john and vic go in the back yeah but finding things at heathrow is not as easy as it sounds hidden three stories below the terminal there's a labyrinth of pipes blow up grandad [Music] really regretting those pvc underpants all the hot water pipes servicing heathrow live underground it's a stifling 40 degrees celsius you don't want to spend too long down here without a break right now we are we are underneath terminal 3 uh departures so right above ours is all checking desks the subway almost follows the footprint of the terminal it does a huge circle so you can walk all the way around and there's lots of little alleyways off it's quite easy to get lost starting to get that little smell of sewage now just starting to permeate the air you can obviously see there's a lot of something in the sump down here that's coming from somewhere that's coming down the wall john it's coming from the wall you've got your torch yeah so basically we've got a little alcove up here on the right hand side of sewage pipes coming out of it and you can probably hear it running down the wall and if you had smelly vision you'd be able to appreciate the rather lovely aroma of excrement until they find the source of the raw sewage leak it continues to be a public health risk running down the wall coming from above yeah it's coming from the bus i think there must be tournaments of level one [Music] heathrow is not only vast on the outside but underground as well it's a five square mile maze that even people who work at the airport struggle with it's a case of say something's just following your nose water engineers john and vic are on a mission to locate a sewage leak smells a bit ripe ah funky yes and their search has led them back to ground level ah look pixar this is the old this is an absorbent pad which says to me highly likely or something at the back here is leaking i can actually i can hear water but i think it's just assistance for him just have a look down there and on the right if there's any way around the back [Music] that's that door there in it yep let's blow my fury out the water i thought there might be a void here but obviously and it's just a emergency exiting of a service corridor i mean these toilets are in about the right place but i mean there's doesn't seem to be any sign around here of any leakage you'd think you'd be coming through the wall with a footprint of one hundred thousand square meters there's still a lot of terminal three for john and victor cover i think we need to be a bit more this way [Music] all the airlines at the airport have strict luggage policies there's limited space and heavy planes use more fuel and cost more to fly checking figure at the moment 178 in terminal 2 customer service manager michael is overseeing check-in for a flight to singapore morning how are you this flight allows economy passengers one piece of cabin package which must fit into the overhead compartment singapore which class is at the front is the machines at the front sorry everybody's a vip to singapore airlines we are trained from day one customer is always right nothing really is initial within reasons yeah we thrive on customer service but there are always cases that test michael's customer service skills an economy passenger wants to take a very large piece of hand luggage on board we've checked our bags in and now we've been told we can't take this on board and i feel very upset about it they um they want to take a wedding dress on board the aircraft but it's quite in a big box and usually the crew are quite accommodating but it's quite a full flight so obviously the hanging space in the wardrobe is going to be required for the business class and street class passengers and they just won't communicate um they just want to get enough for an answer so i said to my colleague tell them to wait around until the crew come we speak to the inflight supervisor if he agrees no problem you have to take it on board if he doesn't then unfortunately it's gonna have to be checked in this couple are traveling to australia via a connecting flight in singapore i'm very unhappy i could cry at this point actually we're getting married while we're there and i'm supposed to be really excited and happy now when i feel gutted it's your most important thing isn't it we went to a lot of thought to work out how it was going to be done made the phone calls i think you've got it sorted and then i mean that's the sort of size you would expect the box to be or even like see we can only go by what you tell us yeah and yeah as i said you've been misled of course and we'll take it up to listen to the conversation but it's not going to help us right now so what we're trying to do is to try and and find out if you can take it on board this flight which will have to speak to the crew obviously due to the time of the year everything is busy it's the fourth flight i mean you can see the queue they're all built in this class yeah but that that's not our problem we don't know whether the flight's full or not we weren't told on the phone but if the flight's full you might have a problem but that's why that's what we do that's what i said it's not your fault you've been misled and i will investigate it um so we'd like to go get our bags checked in and get sorted so you know we don't want to be hanging around okay well you can go and then i'll speak to the crew at the aircraft and then i will let you know when you're bored so if it's okay for you to take it on board they would sort it they will find space for you if they say no we will have to check it in no if they can't sign sure yeah we'll do that for you handle it you will have to check it in yes [Music] the passengers have decided to take their chances and will take the box to the boarding gate i can only do what i can do and that is take the box on board physically and speak to the influence supervisor and try and see if it can help i'm hoping it's going to be a happy [Music] ending [Music] in terminal 3 water engineer john has worked out where the raw sewage leak began and wants to show vic you can sort of treat people like a great big jungle gym i suppose but with a lot more health and safety involved and the ball pit someone was good i find okay no one ever comes down there probably probably first person down here for 20 years i thought i've been in the service corridors before when all the lights have gone out that's quite spooky the older alien films and stuff like that start playing through your red because you just can't see either direction you've only got a little torch you start hearing things but uh yeah so there's lots of little spaces like this in the airport this is just one of many that pipe over there and see in the distance the soil pipe the toilet [Music] that's the area we've got to go a little bit further along follow this big black pipe behind us [Music] one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen thirteen places so and it's gotta be about six or seven yards that way [Music] yeah the smell detectors tracked it down in the end took a bit of finding but done it actually there's a light that works in here it's just one of those little hidden voids that you don't know it's even here until something starts leaking out of it i did leave a voicemail for them to come a little bit earlier to the gate but i can't seem to see them so the flight to singapore closes in 15 minutes michael is on the lookout for the passengers with the wedding dress i have the come quickly because i need to get authority from the crew in charge if it's okay to accept the wedding place onboard the aircraft [Music] where you're where are you off to singapore brisbane brisbane right for some [Music] i'm sure they're gonna be on the way because the flight is on last call at the moment but i still can't see a wedding dress can't see a wedding box you can't miss it surely with time ticking michael's now worried that the passengers might not even make the flight [Music] my team [Music] can you put a caller for 51 hotel juliet please uh 51 hotel juliet to make the way to the boarding gate asap please i want them here quickly i want them here quickly i just put a call up for them on the tunnel to here to hear the the message and hopefully speed themselves to the boarding gate yes they're here okay they're on the way we've got them [Applause] you didn't tell us that was a marathon did you did you get my voice call i called you yeah but you just sat down oh god right come over here we're going to put them through this way now so i'm going to speak to him he's very nice i'm hoping it's going to be okay yeah so just wait for me here and then i will come and get you okay all right yeah okay okay come with me there's just minutes to go until the flight closes it's down to michael to save the dress from traveling in the hold [Music] you don't really want to take your hands off it i mean it's your most precious thing isn't it yeah really important harold the ips this is the box um so this is the wedding dress that we are hoping you're going to give the clearance for us to keep you on board for the passenger sure is that all right with you are amazing thank you so much i would tell them but do all of our customers i'll give you the seat number as well so we never say no remember i said that we always find an alternative it's a teamwork yeah ground staff cabin crew we work together one big family thank you so much thank you i'll give you the synthesis in the moment thanks a lot thanks to michael the dress has even been upgraded to business class i'm sure we'll be okay so yeah hi paul how are you [Music] 24 million people take connecting flights through heathrow every year that's a third of the airport's passengers on the other side of terminal 2 lewis is on his way to assist 95 passengers who are flying from canada to delhi via heathrow today we're meeting the flight from toronto it's a very very very tight connection we've got an hour and 15 minutes to get from this terminal to terminal 4 because they have to make a flight to air india [Music] the connection is tight because the inbound flight is already an hour late the distances in in terminals is phenomenal it's you know we've got walkways and things like that but the terminals have got so much bigger now uh the planes are so much bigger so you know if you have got a really tight connection you're stuck it's not there [Music] as terminal 2 heads into its busy rush hour there's still no sights of the toronto flight if they don't make the connection the airline will have to pay almost 35 000 pounds to re-book the passengers onto a different flight more work for lewis's colleague jenae rather them all connecting than me spending three extra hours rebooking every single one with a further delay to the arrival of the flight lewis's connection window has just narrowed by a further 10 minutes which is very very tight we just have to wait and see we've got people in terminal 4 standing by ready to firing straight to the gate as they come off the bus to be honest i think this will miss well we'll find out because we'll follow him on the bus so how long will they are in your way 15 minutes they've got to go through security as well yeah if the plane is delayed any further there's no way the passengers will make their connection fingers crossed heathrow is host to 81 different airlines and their fleets of planes every time one lands it's a battle against the clock to turn it around and get it back in the air where it can earn its keep we're just looking for any damage engineer nick has got just one hour before this plane needs to get back out to new york check the tires now we'll check the lights we check all the pito probes and the sensors and it's just to make sure that nothing untowards happened during the flight well you wouldn't want anything hanging off or missing wouldn't you now also you've got a check around you these are the critical areas these are the sensors this plane requires 180 000 liters of fuel all 14 tyres to be at a pressure of 210 psi and 250 tray tables to be in full working order there's a lot to do and the jobs just got harder one of the passengers has reported uh he's lost a diamond ring so this is one of the non-routine tasks that we carry out and that's to try and retrieve this passenger's property it's a rare tiffany engagement ring worth over ten thousand pounds keep our fingers crossed i certainly dropped it down the side but probably go anywhere in most communist phones ipads normally at first glass so not back here the passenger is due to make his romantic proposal tomorrow i didn't take the box because it's huge so i took the ring out put it in my pocket which i shouldn't have done yeah i was supposed to propose to her well hopefully still there you're sure it's not your focus yeah 100 sure i don't know what she's 14 of course i feel sorry for him he's going to propose um but he's got the worry now he's here he can't get on the aircraft he can't he can't help with the search it'll it'll be fine it's it's actually not looking particularly good at the moment but the cleaners come through here now and they go through the fine tooth comb [Music] if we're gonna persevere i've gotta get to the cockpit now and uh go once over the book so i'll head back down see how the guys manage now okay he hasn't got a lecture stand down that's it poor thing oh bless them first time around doesn't it ring or no ring nick still needs to get the plane ready for departure let's get a couple hundred people in button down on these girls to get everything stowed [Music] friend tampering powerport outlet does them as well see it's been done got that into position okay 30 seconds to spare that's not bad is it turn around's complete but the ring was nowhere to be found the beacon's on the tug's connected she's on push back at terminal 2 the 787 from toronto has just landed an hour and a half late customer experience manager lewis is waiting to shop around the 95 passengers to a connecting flight i'm starting to get a bit worried now because our connection time is down to probably 55 minutes now i'm just hoping they're going to make the flight worse that can happen they'll be rebooked for another flight but that means their connections because they're not all going to the same place there'll be stopovers and connections within that so it will make it very difficult for them so the passengers might have arrived but their delhi flight is still two miles away in terminal four as time is so tight lewis's colleague has taken drastic action because of the time constraint we've had an atomic transfer we're probably atomizer that's when the buses come over and rather than us having to manually take them all the way across the terminal then connect them to terminal four they go straight up they must come right at the tarmac by the aircraft pick them up straight from it take them straight across the tv that's brilliant saves a lot of time yeah and avoids having a lot of misconceptions and it's better for you in a way in it yeah it helps out a lot with just 45 minutes to take off all the passengers have been put straight onto buses to get them to terminal 4 as quickly as possible you're right sir hello guys i'm extremely sorry your connection is very very tight but we're going to try our best to get you there yeah yeah hydra bed hydra okay are you going to march about man yes no english you can't do any more than what we've done we'll just have to hope when they make their flight otherwise they've got come all the way back to this terminal to rebook whilst the passengers race to make their flight their luggage negotiates heathrow's complex automated baggage system there isn't a connection soul that isn't achievable as long as the aircraft are on time brian helped manage this intricate operation on the busiest day there being circa 35 000 transfer bags coming through heathrow they have to have a logistic nightmare of having to come off an aircraft be sorted out through a system then being repatriated to go on an outbound aircraft it's a hell of a lot that that goes on [Music] there are more bags than passengers at heathrow every day 290 000 bags travel at up to 25 miles per hour through the tunnels where you see the tin of baked beans in the supermarket get scanned and bleep the bags are going through that process um about every minute there'll be a scanner that looks at that bag and will make a decision where it's got to go [Music] there are 30 miles of conveyor belts i don't think people work here at heathrow if you weren't passionate about it and what happens when i want to go on holiday what what do i what do i want to happen well when i you know when i get to the swimming pool i want to be able to put my budgie smugglers on and i want them to be in my suitcase it's very important to have the right budgie smugglers very important [Music] buses carrying passengers transferring from terminal 2 have arrived at terminal 4 with just 25 minutes to spare now they have a long trek to the gate please just carry straight on we've got staff up there for you with 30 passengers needing wheelchair assistance lewis has called in colleague vaz as reinforcement [Music] if the passengers don't make this flight they'll need to be rebooked onto another at the expense of the airline [Music] the first of the able-bodied passengers are boarding we're still waiting for another probably 25 of them [Music] hey with seconds to spare baz has ensured the final passenger has caught her flight i promise you that we'll make it [Music] thanks i always give it to my passenger when we are happy and i make them happy i just give them a smile and give a switch to them just keep them happy you know just remember us when you when you reach we've there to get everybody on board so with the help of everybody involved we serve we've done another good job [Music] so next time there's a storm brewing at heathrow the threat of ice will begin around 6 p.m all right let's go we've got to be very proficient and professional we can't afford to get caught with their pants down britain's border is lost in translation do you speak english at all sir a little bit uh what are you ready and check-in reaches meltdown we've got about 100 passengers left to check in in 45 minutes and he is gonna be on in a bit when it starts building up so you've agreed to pay but now you don't want to pay you did not okay so you're wasting time aren't you [Music] you

Channel: Spark

Views: 1,327,444

Rating: 4.8556986 out of 5

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, building, full documentary, 2017, 2016, 2015, full, Science documentary, britains busiest airport, britains busiest airport heathrow, united kingdom, airport documentary, heathrow britains busiest airport, britain's busiest airport, britain's busiest airport heathrow full documentary, gadget geek, adventure culture, documentaryphotography, automotive photography, adventureisoutthere

Id: Mj-UqKhmU08

Length: 45min 37sec (2737 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 28 2018