When the Queen of England personally sees to your opening ceremony, you know you’ve arrived. The monarch’s presence at today’s opening of the much-anticipated Terminal 5 at London Heathrow International Airport shows just how important the new structure is in the eyes of the British, as well as harried travelers everywhere.

To be sure, it’s an opening peppered with superlatives. Part of the busiest international airport in the world, the $9 billion terminal is the largest free-standing structure in all of the UK. In addition to being the first terminal to subject domestic travelers to fingerprinting, it will also house the world’s first Tiffany & Co. airport boutique and the Gordan Ramsey’s first airport restaurant (Plane Food).

For the time being, the terminal is the exclusive territory of British Airways. The airline has high hopes for the new terminal. It expects 30 million passengers to pass through its gates each year. And it’s even gone so far as to estimate a mere 10 minutes as the average time for passengers to move from the terminal’s entrance through check-in and security to reach the departure gates.

Terminal 5 officially opens to the public on March 27, 2008.