If you fly from the West Coast of the united Sates to South Africa, like me, you have probably spent many hours at Heathrow Airport. I report this with great PRIDE!
Heathrow has embraced the colors of the rainbow in celebration of Pride in London and commissioned a unique interpretation of the iconic flag, created with the help of 6,000 passengers’ kisses. Populated by staff and passengers the flag will now fly above Terminal 2: The Queen’s Terminal until the end of July.
The unveiling of the flag is part of a week-long celebration of Pride, with Heathrow showing its support for the LGBT + community and the colourful spirit of the event, ready to welcome 5% more passengers into London in the week ahead of Pride, than the same time last year.
The piece of ‘kissing art’ – created with kisses rather than traditional paintbrush strokes – denotes the famous rainbow coloured flag and has been populated by international passengers. Each passenger placed their own individual ‘kiss’ stamp onto the crowd-sourced artwork, to show their own support for LGBT+ rights.
The flag started life in Terminal 2 on 1st July, positioned in departures, with passengers able to get involved and donate their mark of love for Pride by stamping their kiss in a choice of vibrant red, orange, yellow, green, blue or purple lipstick, onto the blank canvas. The artwork was quickly populated, with 84,303 passengers passing through the terminal, taking 6,000 kisses to be completed, with the final kisses donated by staff across the airport’s terminals as it took a tour of the control tower, fire station and BA Crew Centre, before being sealed and placed on the flag pole.
Now complete, the flag has been flown outside Terminal 2 and will remain on display until the end of the month for passengers to enjoy and capture on camera as they travel through the airport.
The Heathrow Pride takeover also sees the Heathrow logo receive a Pride makeover and many digital screens across the airport transformed into vibrant displays of rainbow colours.
Carol Hui, Chief of Staff at Heathrow Airport commented:
“We’ve been getting into the spirit of Pride right across the airport to show our support for London and the rest of the UK, where diversity and equality are so strongly celebrated and equally valued across our employees and passengers alike. Many of the LGBT+ community travel into London, to celebrate this incredible festival so we wanted to give them a warm welcome by, quite literally, flying the flag for Pride.”
Leading the celebrations was the Heathrow Proud Network, an internal staff group that works together to make a difference to the experience of LGBT+ colleagues and to promote a level playing field of opportunity.
Steph Constantinides, Facilitator at Heathrow and one of the new Faces of Heathrow said:
“For many years, my identity has been the talking point for many people. Apparently, I don’t fit in the ‘female’ appearance box. But if I was to step back and give myself advice, it would be to stand tall and never change YOU for anyone. What better way to stand tall than become the face of Proud Heathrow?”
The Heathrow Proud Network will also took part in the Pride in London parade on Saturday 7th July.
- 6,000 passengers donate their kisses to create unique piece of art for Pride London
- Heathrow’s Pride flag is now flying high above Terminal 2 until the end of July
- The crowd-sourced artwork is part of a week of celebrations, co-ordinated by the Heathrow Proud Network who provide support to LGBT+ employees
- 5% more passengers than last year are due to fly into Heathrow ahead of Pride in London this weekend
Posted by Melanie Nathan
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Love it! Quite a creative piece of artwork!