Manchester Airport Group (MAG) has this week revealed statistics showing the true impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on passenger numbers.
The group has made an appeal to add a fourth category to the UK government’s traffic light travel system – which would mean that passengers don’t have to take a COVID test – after it reported that passenger numbers plummeted by 90% over the last 12 months of the pandemic.
Leaders at Manchester Airport Group (MAG) now argue that “plotting a path to restriction-free travel” will be key to the revival of the travel sector, with a roadmap based on “greater cooperation” needed between the UK government and its overseas counterparts to share information about the emergence of new COVID-19 variants of concern.
It says this fourth category would crucially eliminate the need for travellers to take expensive PCR tests on their return.
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Currently, as part of the traffic light travel system – which is set to come into play from 17th May following review and categorises countries as red, amber or green based on the risk associated with visiting them – the UK government proposes that all passengers, even those returning from the lowest risk ‘green’ destinations, will have to take a PCR test so that it can gather data that will help with genomic sequencing, but MAG has said this could be avoided if governments worked together on sequencing and sharing data on variants.
MAG said that a restriction-free category that capitalises on the success of the UK’s world-leading vaccination programme would “remove significant personal cost to passengers” and inject “much-needed confidence” into the UK aviation sector ahead of what will be a critical summer season.
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Unsplash | Manchester Airport
“The UK government is among the first to have set out proposals for a system that enables international travel to resume and should be applauded for taking the lead.” said MAG’s CEO, Charlie Cornish.
“After more than a year of almost total shutdown, and with so many jobs and so much economic value at stake, it’s really important we get people moving again once it is safe to do so [and] we now need the government to confirm the 17th May start date as soon as possible, along with the list of countries that fall into each ‘traffic light’ category.”
He continued: “The price tag attached to testing will hold back the recovery and hinder the sector’s ability to power the UK’s economic revival as a whole [though].
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“The requirement to complete a PCR test on return from even the safest countries adds potentially unnecessary cost and the government’s attention must now turn to finding smarter and more affordable ways to manage the risk posed by new variants of concern [which] should be achieved by forging ever-closer partnerships with key markets and developing transparent ways of sharing data into these variants so they can be effectively contained.
“Where we can trust data from other countries, forcing people to spend money on expensive PCR tests, to obtain the very same information, would represent a colossal waste of everyone’s money”.
Manchester Airport
He concluded: “Only by setting ourselves on a course back to restriction-free travel now will the aviation industry find itself on a road to full recovery”.
You can find more information via the MAG website here.
Featured Image – Manchester Airport
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Police uncover more details in investigation into remains of ‘Baby Ava’ found in Little Hulton park last year
Emily Sergeant
More details in the investigation into the remains of a baby found in a park in Little Hulton last year have been uncovered.
Detectives have now released images of clothing found next to the baby’s remains.
Need bringing up to speed? It was on 20 November 2024 that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) received a call from a member of the public reporting the discovery of what appeared to be human remains in a park in the Little Hulton area of Salford – but it was only when officers and detectives attended the scene that they determinted the remains to be that of a baby girl.
At the time, police referred to the baby simply as ‘Baby A’, but it was revealed that they later chose to name her Ava.
Since that day, a dedicated team from GMP’s Major Incident Team has worked ‘tirelessly’ to uncover the truth about who Baby Ava was and what led to her being left alone.
Police have uncovered more details in the investigation of Baby Ava’s identity / Credit: GMP
Detectives have followed up on hundreds of public tips, conducted thousands of hours of house-to-house enquiries, reviewed extensive CCTV footage, and collaborated with police forces and agencies across the country in pursuit of identifying who baby Ava was and securing justice for her.
Now, fast approaching a year since the investigation began, police are sharing with the public some new details they have uncovered – including pictures of ‘distinct’ clothing found next to Baby Ava’s remains.
#APPEAL | Detectives leading the investigation into the discovery of Baby Ava in Little Hulton last November have reappealed on @BBCCrimewatch today.
We continue to appeal directly to Ava’s mum or dad to come forward and speak to us.
Following detectives’ earlier updates, where they revealed a piece of fabric had been recovered from the scene, they have now been able to confirm that this fabric is a pair of ladies’ size large underwear, with a ‘distinct pattern’ of what they believe is cartoon donkeys on them.
Enquiries so far have led police to believe the underwear is not manufactured in the UK, but can be shipped wholesale.
“We hope given their distinctive nature that somebody recognises them,” GMP said in a statement.
The ‘distinct’ underwear found by detectives at the scene / Credit: GMP
Unfortunately, DNA recovered from the underwear, as well as trawls of several public databases, have not furthered the search for Baby Ava’s parents as of yet, however GMP says it does believe Ava was born at around 38 to 39 weeks gestation, and that the pregnancy may have been ‘concealed or unregistered’.
Police have also revealed that Baby Ava was found on top of a layer of snow next to an area that may have been disturbed by animals, so they believe she had been buried initially.
Anyone with any information that may be of assistance is asked to contact police on 101, quoting log 1319 of 20/11/24, or by heading to the Major Incident Public Portal here.
Featured Image – GMP
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Royal Mail fined £21m by Ofcom failing to meet its delivery targets
Emily Sergeant
Ofcom has fined Royal Mail a whopping £21 million for failing to meet its delivery targets in the last financial year.
Each year, it’s the watchdog’s job to look at and measure Royal Mail’s delivery performance against nationwide annual delivery targets, and for the 2024/25 season, the company was required to deliver 93% of First Class mail within one working day of collection, and 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days.
If Royal Mail misses its annual targets, Ofcom will first consider evidence of any ‘exceptional circumstances’ beyond the company’s control, and whether it would have achieved its targets had those events not occurred.
However, even after accounting for extreme weather events, Royal Mail was still found to have fallen short of its targets… and this time, they’ve been fined their highest sum so far.
We have fined Royal Mail £21m for missing its 2024/25 delivery targets, without justification.
The company must now urgently publish, and deliver, a credible improvement plan.
This is the third time in a row that Ofcom has found the company to be in breach of its regulatory obligations, after it was first fined a substantial £5.6m in November 2023, and then a further £10.5m in December 2024.
Royal Mail only delivered 77% of First Class mail and 92.5% of Second Class mail on time between April 2024 and March 2025.
Ofcom says it has therefore decided that the company breached its obligations by failing to provide ‘an acceptable level of service’ without justification, and took ‘insufficient and ineffective’ steps to try and prevent this failure.
“Hiding behind the pandemic as a driving factor in failures at Royal Mail does not cut it.”
Royal Mail has been fined £21m by Ofcom failing to meet its delivery targets / Credit: Royal Mail
The watchdog says this is likely to have impacted millions of customers who did not get the service they paid for.
“Millions of important letters are arriving late, and people aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp,” explained Ian Strawhorne, who is the Director of Enforcement at Ofcom.
“These persistent failures are unacceptable, and customers expect and deserve better.
“Royal Mail must rebuild consumers’ confidence as a matter of urgency, and that means making actual significant improvements, not more empty promises.
“We’ve told the company to publicly set out how it’s going to deliver this change, and we expect to start seeing meaningful progress soon. If this doesn’t happen, fines are likely to continue.”
The Manc -
22nd April 2021 
