A royal welcome awaits passengers at Heathrow as Terminal 2 celebrates its first birthday on Thursday (June 4).

To mark one year since the opening of Heathrow's newly revamped terminal, and its official Royal opening by The Queen on June 23, the airport has transformed a regular baggage trolley into a unique golden showpiece in honour of Her Majesty and her long-running ties with the airport.

With the push of a button, the-one-of-a-kind majestic trolley also plays the British National anthem - God Save the Queen - which will sound through the halls throughout June.

Inspired by the royal state coaches and carriages, Heathrow's palace on wheels is complete with a gilded frame, ornate sculptures, heraldic lions and baroque cherubs design, with hand carved oak wheels, gold plated crystal lanterns, the Union Jack flag and an original Heathrow Coat of Arms.

A butler shows off Heathrow's special royal golden luggage trolley

As part of the celebrations there will also be regal arts and crafts for children, a string quartet and appearance from Beefeaters.

In its first year of service T2 has handled 10m bags and 12m passengers whose top purchases include 387,827 fragrance bottles and 20,000 glasses of champagne.

Normand Boivin, Heathrow’s chief operating officer, said: “Exactly one year ago today, Terminal 2 officially opened its doors.

"We wanted to commemorate this proud occasion by providing our passengers with an eccentric and quintessentially British addition to the terminal.

"We have a long association with Her Majesty that stretches right back to our beginnings when the Queen opened the first passenger terminal and we wanted to celebrate the birthday milestone with a symbol of this.”

What passengers have bought so far at T2:

  • 387,827 bottles of fragrance
  • 27,257 lipsticks
  • 169,691 bottles of whisky
  • 23,000 oysters
  • 20,000 glasses of champagne
  • 2,000k of salmon
  • 1 ton of prawns