HIDDEN AIRPORT CHARGES PART ll: VACATION OR STAYCATION, GUIDANCE ON NEW PROCEDURES


Last month, following some rather pointed reactions on the PHTM Facebook page over the latest increase in pickup/parking charges at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport, we produced a table – and some words, of course! – showing the current drop-off and pick- up charges at all the major UK airports. We got quite a reaction to that feature, which is great… so we wanted to update PHTM readers on the latest position around our airports. Having looked at these various charges, we started to think in terms of possible delays within the airport which might cause the passen- ger(s) to be late coming out of the terminal to their taxi/PHV. This is where several questions have cropped up, to which there will not yet be answers as the whole air travel procedure has just started up again in earnest. As all readers will know, most private hire firms and their drivers offer a “Meet and Greet” service for their passengers, especially regulars, which usually entails the company contacting the airport with the passenger’s flight details to confirm the correct arrival time so that the driver isn’t sitting outside having to pay extra pick-up charges. A quick glance at the table opposite will highlight how these charges can rack up. Indeed the picture below taken from Aberdeen Airport shows that the Express drop-off can escalate from £3 to £10 if you are exceeding ten minutes and even the short stay car park prices practically double at stays beyond one hour!


using this facility as a safe and effective alternative to quarantine. However, UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has confirmed that any coronavirus testing introduced on arrival at UK airports will not eliminate quarantine. Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye urged the Government to change its policy, in order to avoid losing the game of global “quarantine roulette”. Evidently the move, which was subject to Government approval, now seems highly unlikely. Secretary Shapps told Radio 4 that the pro- posal involves two tests – one on arrival, and a second test seven or eight days later, and the need to quarantine between the two tests would not change. OK, so what about passengers coming into all the other UK airports and having to go into quarantine? One PHTM reader raised a very important point: If such a passenger requires a taxi or PHV to take them home, and they are supposed to be in quarantine, does the driver have to do the same? PHTMreplied to him as follows: “To be honest, the information on this topic is very unclear… If every driver had to quarantine, this would not be realistic; how would any passenger get home from the airport? However, to be clear, anyone returning to the UK who is told to quar- antine will be registered for Test and Trace. If they then develop symptoms then you may be contacted to also quarantine, as will any- one else with whom you’ve been in contact.


In the interim be vigilant Charges levied at Aberdeen Airport


But then we thought it might be the case that there would be inordi- nate delays at some airports where incoming passengers would be tested for Covid as they came through Customs. Well, as we started to look into the reality of the situation – and the chaos that has ensued over recent weeks with the change of quarantine policy for various countries and so on – it would appear that these sorts of pro- cedures are not exactly happening at very many of our airports… yet. We did mention temperature testing at airports, which is/was being trialled at several of our airports in recent weeks. However, SAGE said that “current scientific evidence does not support temperature screening as an effective method to screen passengers for coron- avirus”. As we reported, Heathrow was set to become the first UK airport to offer medical Covid-19 testing for incoming passengers. Under this new ‘Test-on-Arrival’ system, passengers can take the pilot testing scheme of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). It will be available for passengers coming in from the USA, China, Brazil, and Portugal. So, if you happen to get a negative result in this test, you are free to go without any quarantine period. At least that was supposed to be the way it happened. On 19 August, Collinson and Swissport announced that their facility for Covid-19 testing was set up and ready for use at Heathrow Termi- nal 2, with the same facility ready for use at Terminal 5 by the end of August. They maintain that over 30 countries worldwide are already


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with your cleaning regime, wear a mask, do not allow passengers in the front seat, and install a screen if your council allows them.” We spoke to several NPHTAmembers about this issue; one, who had recently returned from a trip to Majorca, said she travelled with a party of 16 people. They had to fill in a form when they got to Major- ca (where they are extremely strict at that airport, with temperature testing and allsorts), which would be shown to personnel at Manch- ester Airport on their arrival back in the UK. In reality, nobody at Manchester was checking for anything… there was a huge flight that came in at the same time as theirs from a different destination, and nobody checked them either. Another member from the South coast, who does a lot of airport runs to and from Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, told us that he asks his passengers not to sit in the front of his vehicle; some wear masks but not all of them; and he takes as many precautions as possible. He also said that many of his passengers have told him there’s no checking going on at these airports. However, both members said the same thing: What about the hun- dreds of incoming passengers who make their way home via train, Tube or Metrolink? They’re hardly going to quarantine everybody in the carriage…! The fact is that this whole pandemic, lockdown and relaxation situa- tion is so new to everybody… there is no precedent, there are U-turns virtually every day in respect of Government policy, and it is extreme- ly difficult to work out the best possible guidance.


Instructions for dropping off at Birmingham International SEPTEMBER 2020


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