Birmingham a designated airport for 'red list ' arrivals
Birmingham Airport is to join London Heathrow as a designated 'red list ' airport for passengers arriving from high-risk countries.
The Government announced that passengers arriving from any of the 50 destinations on its red list will be permitted to land at a dedicated terminal at Birmingham or Heathrow from tomorrow.
It means travellers arriving from places such as India and South Africa will avoid the need to make a detour via an amber or green list country.
However, people will still be required to quarantine in a specialist hotel on arrival.
Nick Barton, chief executive of Birmingham Airport, said: “As Birmingham Airport has done throughout this pandemic by accepting repatriation flights and facilitating life-saving cargo and medical services, it will join Heathrow Airport to become one of the UK 's designated red list arrival airports, continuing its effort to support essential air services for British nationals needing to return home.
“The health and wellbeing of our customers, employees and partners continues to be our highest priority and so arrivals from red list countries will be handled through a dedicated terminal. This will safeguard physical separation away from all other arriving passengers to ensure safety in order to support the Government 's managed quarantine process for red list passengers.
“Capacity through this dedicated terminal will be managed by staggering the arrival of red list flights to ensure passenger segregation. Customers arriving from amber and green list countries will arrive through a completely separate terminal.
“Working with control authorities and the Government, significant operational and capacity planning has been undertaken. Safety mitigations will continue to be managed to protect customers and airport personnel, through social distancing, enhanced cleaning, PPE, additional personnel and dedicated passenger routings.
“We have assurance from the Government that the Border will have sufficient cover to manage these red list flights as well as those arriving from other destinations into a separate terminal.
“Once processed at the border, the Government 's managed quarantine service will transport passengers to dedicated quarantine hotels.
“Customers do not need to make any changes to their travel plans but we remind all passengers that they must have a negative PCR test before returning to the UK and are required to complete Government documentation. ”