Coronavirus Updates: UK airports to require passengers to cover faces and wear gloves

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Passengers travelling through Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports will be required to cover their faces and wear gloves from Thursday, owner Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has announced.

All airport staff serving passengers will wear gloves and face masks, and temperature screening trials will take place over the next few weeks. The airports are also considering requiring passengers to make a health declaration before they are allowed to enter.

The firm said the move was designed to ensure that the small number of passengers currently making essential journeys through its airports feel safer and more confident about flying, as well as providing a further level of protection to colleagues working at the airport.

The MAG chief executive, Charlie Cornish, said:

It’s clear that social distancing will not work on any form of public transport. But we’re confident that when the time is right, people will be able to travel safely.

We now need to work urgently with government to agree how we operate in the future. This has to be a top priority so that people can be confident about flying, and to get tourism and travel going again.

At MAG we’ve taken expert medical advice on how people can travel safely, and we’re pleased to be piloting these new measures at our airports for those passengers who do still need to travel.

We expect to be able to agree a new framework by the end of May that will support a restart of the industry as soon as possible.

Yesterday, Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, announced it will soon begin temperature screening of arriving passengers.

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