Rome's Fiumicino readies for 'safe list' visitors, hopes strict COVID-19 measures encourage more travel

Record ID: 1559780

  • Title: Rome's Fiumicino readies for 'safe list' visitors, hopes strict COVID-19 measures encourage more travel
  • Date: 30th June 2020
  • Summary: ROME, ITALY (JUNE 30, 2020) (REUTERS) MAN WEARING MASK WITH LUGGAGE ON ESCALATOR INSIDE FIUMICINO AIRPORT GROUP OF PASSENGERS WAVING AS THEY WALK THROUGH AIRPORT VIEW OF NEAR EMPTY TERMINAL YOUNG GIRL WALKING THROUGH TERMINAL HOLDING DOLL PEOPLE IN MASKS WALKING THROUGH ARRIVALS SECTION, SIGN IN AIRPORT TELLING PEOPLE TO KEEP A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST ONE METRE PEOPLE IN MASKS WALKING THROUGH AIRPORT
  • Embargoed: 14th July 2020 15:59
  • Keywords: 14 countries COVID-19 EU European Union airport coronavirus lockdown safe list travel
  • Location: ROME, ITALY
  • City: ROME, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Health/Medicine
  • Reuters ID: LVA001CKKC11J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Rome's main international airport was readying to expand its partly closed terminals on Tuesday (June 30) as European Union governments approved a "safe list" of 14 countries for which they will allow non-essential travel from July.
    Fiumicino remains to be a shadow of its usual self since the pandemic, with few people wandering through the near-empty terminals that would usually be rammed during summertime.
    It has slowly gotten busier this month thanks to gradual reopening of borders among European countries, and is likely to continue to increase from Wednesday (July 1) when people from the 14 newly approved countries including Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea will be able to visit for business or leisure.
    Rome's airports, Fiumicino and the city's smaller Ciampino, pride themselves on their strict safety and hygiene measures which they rapidly put in place after Italy became the first country outside of China to go into lockdown.
    They were recently awarded a 'Biosafety Trust' certification by Italian inspection body RINA, meaning they are considered to be the leading example in how to prevent the spread of infections inside airports.
    The airports' management Aeroporti di Roma (AdR) hope this acknowledgement of their high prevention measures will encourage people who may be nervous about travelling after the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
    "Our main objective is to reassure passengers on the fact that both inside the airport and also in all aspects of every activity that comes in and out of the airport, there is a system of infection prevention, a risk management, and there are effective procedures in place which are constantly monitored and enacted," AdR's manager of health and safety Canio Pietragallo told Reuters.
    Inside the airport, all passengers are required to have body temperature checks, wear masks and keep a distance of at least one metre, and everything inside and outside the airport is regularly sanitised and constantly monitored. Loved ones waiting to pick up their family and friends have to stand outside the airport instead of by the arrivals as an extra measure to avoid contagion.
    "Here in the airport everything feels very safe, safer than in the street to tell you the truth," said Italian passenger Silvia Saraceno who was travelling to Sicily for work, taking her first flight since March.
    Italy allowed free movement across the country and reopened its borders to European countries from June 3, and since then other European countries have gradually allowed travel within the region.
    As lockdown measures across Europe ease, numbers of travellers in Fiumicino are slowly starting to rise again.
    "In May, passengers went up to 110,000. In June, until today, we have passed 250,000. Therefore the progressive reopenings of borders are having their effect," Director General of AdR Gian Luca Litarru said.
    But compared to normal summer months where the city is heaving with tourists, the numbers are still small.
    Litarru said that around 140,000 passengers would pass through the airport on a normal day in June - in the past week they've had an average of 13,000 per day.
    After the COVID-19 outbreak, Fiumicino adapted to the minimal number of travellers by closing parts of the airport.
    From Wednesday (July 1), a large section of Terminal 3 will reopen again for the first time since March as 'safe list' countries are allowed to travel again.
    The countries are Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.
    China has also been provisionally approved, although travel would only open up if Chinese authorities also allowed in EU visitors. Reciprocity is a condition of being on the list.
    Russia, Brazil and Turkey, along with the United States, are among countries whose containment of the virus is considered worse than that of the EU average and so will have to wait at least two weeks. The bloc will carry out fortnightly reviews.
    The move is aimed at supporting the EU travel industry and tourist destinations, particularly countries like Italy that have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
    (Production: Antonio Denti, Emily Roe)
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