Northern Ireland

Belfast International Airport boss: 14-day quarantine is a crazy idea

A passenger arrives at Belfast International Airport for the first passenger flights to leave the airport since the coronavirus lockdown. Picture by Hugh Russell
A passenger arrives at Belfast International Airport for the first passenger flights to leave the airport since the coronavirus lockdown. Picture by Hugh Russell A passenger arrives at Belfast International Airport for the first passenger flights to leave the airport since the coronavirus lockdown. Picture by Hugh Russell

BELFAST International Airport could take three years to return to capacity levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic, its managing director has said.

The first passenger flights at the airport since the end of March resumed yesterday as lockdown restrictions continue to be gradually eased.

Safety measures have been introduced, such as passengers being required to wear a face covering to enter the terminal building and on board their flight.

A one-way system has been implemented to keep arriving and departing passengers apart, while catering and retail outlets remain closed.

Graham Keddie, managing director, said they were "projecting forward two or three years before we're back to 2019 levels" of capacity.

He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Ulster programme: "There is no doubt we will be nowhere near capacity for quite some time. I mean, today we should have 22,000-plus going through the terminal and we will be lucky to have 700 or 800."

Mr Keddie criticised quarantine measures requiring passengers arriving in Britain and Northern Ireland to self-isolate for 14 days as a "crazy, crazy idea", and said he still did not know how it would be enforced.

"Our first international flight tomorrow is to Faro. The arrival, we have still no idea how it's going to be enforced, no real idea how it's going to work," he said.

"It would be quite nice to get a little bit of detail about it. But ultimately it's like a stake through the heart of our summer, this quarantine – it's ill-timed, it's ill thought through and illogical."

The quarantine rule does not apply to people arriving from the Common Travel Area – the Republic, the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man.

Since lockdown began, Northern Ireland has only had an Aer Lingus flight from Belfast City Airport to London Heathrow, and a Loganair flight between Derry and London Stansted.

Mr Keddie described the impact of the health crisis on Belfast International, which has for months only been dealing with cargo flights, as "very tough".

"We might as well have £60,000 on the ground and burn it every day. But, now that we're back flying again, it means that we can start taking people back off furlough, we can start getting back to some level of normality," he said.