Anxiety in the air as passengers return to flying
PASSENGERS are getting used to the ‘strange’ new way of life at Manchester Airport.
Perspex screens, masks and hand sanitiser bottles – safety measures which have become synonymous with the coronavirus crisis – are everywhere.
Cleaners in hazmat suits are a regular sight, and new technology, like thermal imaging cameras to check passengers’ temperatures, have been installed at security.
Gradually the airport, which has been partially shut since the start of lockdown, is beginning to reopen.
Flights resumed from Terminal 3 yesterday and Terminal 2 is then scheduled to reopen on July 15.
Faith Missanah is waiting to join the checkin queue at Terminal 1 before she jets off to Tanzania with her five-year-old son Aydan. “I feel a bit anxious,” says Faith. Aydan is having a bit of difficulty getting used to wearing his face mask.
“It’s complicated for him. He’s used to travelling but it’s all a bit new”, she says.
It’s not just Aydan who is find the experience strange.
Faith, 25, says seeing all of the safety precautions at the airport has made the whole pandemic feel ‘a bit more real.’
“At home you hear it on the news, but it’s not the same as seeing everyone in their masks,” she adds.
She is flying out to visit her husband, who she hasn’t seen in a year.
“I’m excited about seeing my husband but I’m so anxious about the airport. They are taking precautions, you have to be more cautious”. Muhammad Naghman, 24, also finds the whole situation ‘strange.’
He is planning to fly out to Islamabad in Pakistan for a holiday to see his parents. But David Ordman, 51, is a little less fazed by the changes at the airport. That’s because he has been flying throughout the pandemic for his work in the telecoms industry. At first, his company paid for him to fly via private jet for his job in Amsterdam, now he flies with KLM.
“I have been doing it for weeks now, I was flying through lockdown as I work overseas. “When you get through everything (security) it’s dark and switched off, no duty free, no cafes. Everybody sits there looking
Passengers Muhammad Naghman and Leigh Pratt
I flew a couple of days after 9/11. It’s all part and parcel of living
Leigh Pratt
scared of everyone else. I use the time to walk around the terminal with my FitBit. There is nobody around. There’s no point sitting next to someone with Covid.”
Leigh Pratt, 58, from Hartlepool, is excited to be flying back to Malaysia, where she lives.
She has been unable to go back home since she left the country to visit her husband who is working in Indonesia. She decided to come back to the UK to stay with her daughter – where she has been stuck for months.
Leigh had to get approval from the Ministry of Tourism and have a swab test declaring she was Covid-free in order to return to Malaysia. She isn’t worried about travelling, but thinks everyone should wear a mask and stick to social distancing rules.
“I’m not nervous about flying, I flew a couple of days after 9/11. It’s part and parcel of living,” she says.