Pub operator JD Wetherspoon opened its new pub at Heathrow Airport on 4 June, with the creation of 50 new jobs, and after a £1.9 million spend on developing the outlet, at the new Terminal 2: The Queen’s Terminal.
The Wetherspoon pub, which will be called The Flying Chariot, will be Wetherspoon’s sixth pub at Heathrow and it will be managed by Steve Baldwin.
The pub takes its name from a comment in a book, written by Doctor John Wilkins, Rector of Cranford Parish Church, situated in the village at the east end of Heathrow Airport. He wrote in ‘Discovery of a New World in the Moon’, published in 1638, that it should be possible “to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit, and give such motion unto it, as shall convey him through the air.”
The new pub will be open from 4am until after the last departing flight, seven days a week. Food will be served throughout the day, until an hour before closing every day.
The new-look pub is on three floors, the ground/concourse, mezzanine and tower, with a bar situated on both the ground and mezzanine levels.
A heavy emphasis is being placed on the design, with the Heathrow control tower by Richard Rogers referenced as well as a number of aerodynamic fluid forms, to give the pub the feel of aircraft and modern engineering.
It will have a number of distinctive features including a tower which can be accessed from the customer area. Customers will be able to look out over the runway and boarding gates using fixed telescopes.
The Flying Chariot will have an open kitchen, a dedicated deli and coffee area for fast fresh meals, a coffee lounge area, as well as table service in the area behind the bar. It will specialise in real ales, serving a wide range of beers, including those from local and regional brewers.
Photos, information boards relating to events, history and characters of the area, will be displayed in the pub, as well as a moving mural on an 80 inch plasma screen, which shows ‘the Best of British’, and includes Great British icons.