These absurd Covid-19 rules have actually made airports more civilised

Cleaner, more efficient, less crowded – but there are certain drawbacks

I had my suspicions, as I made my way to London Heathrow in July for the first time in nearly six months, that the airport experience would be improved, not worsened, as a result of the pandemic. I was largely right.

For all the (not unwarranted) whinging about masks, there are major elements to travel that have benefited from these new coronavirus measures, whether or not you happen to consider them nonsense or necessary. Less people, spaced further apart being an obvious plus in any airport situation.

I noted down a number of observations as I meandered through the strange terminal of the new normal, where I would be flying to Venice. Starting with…

A slick process at the airport hotel

I always opt for an overnight stay when I've got an early flight to catch; it doesn't cost much more than a taxi would in the dead of morning. Premier Inn recently unveiled its new 'CleanProtect' policy, which involves all sorts of new hygiene measures to keep human contact to a minimum, from contactless check-ins to allocated breakfast slots. It sounds regimented, but in reality it streamlined the whole bleary-eyed 4am check-out experience.

Temperature checks as soon as you enter the terminal

“Don’t you have to take my temperature?” my mother inquired as we joined the queue for check-in. “We already have,” the official said, pointing to the large but innocuous scanner we’d failed to notice behind us.

I really do marvel at these thermal surveillance cameras, now stationed at Heathrow, Manchester and London City airports, which scan passengers as soon as they pass through the entrance to check for elevated body heat. So efficient! Or not.

Security expert Bruce Schneier, a long-time critic, describes the machines as merely “theatre”, telling Computer Weekly: “Temperature is a bad proxy for having the disease and the measuring device is not very accurate.”

Indeed, one member of Heathrow staff told us that on hot days, they often have to send flustered passengers back outside to cool off for five minutes before re-entering because they’d triggered the alert merely as a result of the weather, not a fever.

This would be the first of many well-intentioned Covid-19 measures that don’t make much sense, I would come to find. Still, less faffing around with temperature guns, and…

Less faffing in general

I imagine that with the usual mass of crowds at Heathrow, all these extra rules and regulations could slow things down, but I was travelling the day after the UK lifted its blanket quarantine laws, and the airport was still relatively barren.

All luggage was required to be checked in at the BA desk, as per Italy’s ban on hand luggage in the overhead lockers, so no faffing around with a wheely case at security.

And no dawdling tourists to bump into at every turn, what with the social distancing stickers on the floor. Helped even further, I might add, by my travel companion, who in rearranging her mask, managed to inhale dust and thus explode into a muffled coughing fit that took quite some time to clear, and had people fleeing discreetly in all directions.

Worrying waste

Reassuringly for some, there was an awful lot of re-sanitising surfaces as people trundled through security, using endless reams of those wipes in plastic packages, not to mention the disposable gloves and masks offered at every turn – all destined for landfills or the sea. So yes, airports are cleaner, but at great cost to the turtles.

When you consider the sheer volume of single-use waste the whole world is using at the moment thanks to this pandemic alone, it’s not a pretty picture. On a busy day, Heathrow sees 250,000 passengers cross its floors. That would require an awful lot of surface wipes.

"It's just a matter of time before we start seeing wildlife washing up dead with [masks] in its stomach, or gagged around its beak,” said Gary Stokes of OceansAsia last month. This week, researchers at the Marine Conservation Society said they were horrified to see the number of plastic masks and gloves floating in the oceans and washing up on beaches.

Clearly this is a problem with no easy solution.

Slim pickings for food

The only open shop upstairs at the terminal was Glorious Britain, purveyors of patriotic snow globes and fridge magnets; all the restaurants were still closed. Downstairs, the Duty Free halls were functioning, with minor absences; no overzealous salespeople spritzing perfume samples and handing out shots of dodgy liquor.

One of the only places we could find food, amid a ghost town of closed Pret-a-Mangers and WHSmiths on the lower level, was, somewhat surprisingly, at the gleaming Fortnum and Mason bar. Every other stool was sectioned off and menus replaced with QR codes. Each customer I counted was nursing a chilled glass of champagne; enjoying a brief reprieve from the mask, myself included.

Better boarding

At the gate, random temperature checks were performed with thermometer guns, and forms were handed over from passengers to BA, to affirm that none of us, to our knowledge, had coronavirus, and with our accommodation details listed for track and trace purposes in Italy.

Boarding was conducted by row, as is always the custom. As usual, no one paid much attention and joined the queue en-masse - albeit at a distance of one metre apart.

The big difference was thanks to Italy’s baffling and since-abandoned rule that overhead lockers were not to be used, in an attempt to ‘reduce overcrowding in the aisles’ thanks to all the kerfuffle that usually occurs with stowing hand luggage. Silly reason, excellent result; the boarding process was so much quicker as a result.

It has long been my assertion that the hand-luggage only approach is a false economy. I can see why, in certain circumstances, if you’re flying between London and Zurich for business twice a week with a militantly streamlined packing system, it makes sense.

But for most of us, the extra time it takes to prune one’s belongings down to fit into a too-small container for a weekend city break as if it’s some sort of contest, the messing about with liquids in piddly bottles at security, dragging it all through the terminal, and struggling to find space, if you’re lucky, in the overhead compartments upon boarding – all to avoid waiting an extra ten minutes at the carousel on the other end? Madness.

Anyway, one passenger did manage to smuggle an enormous hiking bag all the way to the door of the plane before being rumbled, and made quite the fuss when told he’d have to surrender it to the hold.

“It’s not us,” insisted the BA flight attendant. “It’s the Italians. If they see a bag in the overhead locker they won’t let anyone off the plane when we land,” and then, still not winning the fight, “Sixty passengers stuck for one bag. Just no.”

A theatre indeed

The rest of the two-and-a-half-hour flight passed without incident, although credit to all the heath workers at the moment; even that felt like a long time to be muzzled without a break. On the upside, again, the cabin was unusually, forensically clean.

Having successfully maintained our distance from one another throughout the entire airport experience, the ridiculousness of then being seated egg-and-bird with strangers on a nearly-full flight was lost on no-one.

Upon landing, we were instructed to disembark a metre apart. Most passengers laughed.

Have you found flying to be a better or worse experience post-pandemic? Or are you staying well away from airports? Let us know in the comments box below.