Manchester Airport
is moving all its operations into terminal one in response to the drop in
passenger numbers expected as a result of the new national lockdown in England that took effect from 5 November. The move will happen on Wednesday 11 November and be in place until
further notice.
From this date, all
passengers will depart and arrive from terminal one and passengers should not use terminals
two and three. Passengers returning to Manchester after this date whose
vehicles are parked in the terminal three multi-storey car park will be
contacted to advise them of this change.
The airport is
making the change because it expects a number of airlines to scale back or
cancel services during this period. British Airways has already said it is
cutting services during November.
Many of the airport’s
retail outlets will close during the new lockdown. In terminal one, only Pret a
Manger, Greggs, Boots, Spar on landside and Pret, Boots and WHSmith on airside
will remain open.
The airport‘s Drop
& Go parking service will be put on hold from Wednesday 11 November and
will not accept new bookings. In order to best enable social distancing and to
avoid crowding, the airport is asking people collecting passengers to wait for
them in their cars, rather than coming into the terminal to greet them. The free drop-off
point, next to the JetParks 1 car park, will remain available to use.
Karen Smart, managing
director at Manchester Airport, said: “When it became clear that England
would enter a second national lockdown, we moved quickly to put an appropriate
plan of action in place, which will safeguard the continued operation of our
airport during these uncertain times. This includes closing terminal three from
Wednesday 11 November until further notice.
“Changing our
operation like this is not straightforward and I would like to thank our
dedicated teams for their hard work in preparing for this scenario. We will
keep this decision under constant review and communicate any further changes to
our customers.”