If you’re travelling through the Winnipeg James Richardson International Airport anytime soon, things are going to look a bit different than what you’re used to.
For starters, there’s been a serious decline in traffic — according to Vice-president of communications and government relations for the Winnipeg Airports Authority, Tyler MacAfee.
“April and May we saw a drop in traffic of about 95%, so we were at about 5% of the traffic we were at in previous years, some days even worse than that,” he said.
McAfee says traffic started to increase slightly in June and July, up to 10% of the airport’s regular traffic, compared to the same time last year.
Another noticeable change at the Winnipeg airport is the increased safety protocols.
MacAfee tells CKDM the airport has moved to touchless parking payments, and have also increased cleaning procedures.
“Cleaners are far more visible, cleaning all the high touch areas on a regular basis, just to make sure people are safe when they’re in the terminal.”
Unlike the Brandon airport — which requires everyone wear masks in the terminal — the Winnipeg airport is only mandating passengers wear masks when boarding, and passing through security.
However, the Winnipeg Airports Authority’s Vice-president of communications and government relations says they will continue monitoring the situation, especially as the airport starts to see more traffic.
“We’re still confident that people can maintain that physical distancing of 6 feet, so we’re not requiring masks for everybody. But we do recognize that as passenger traffic slowly starts to increase, we’re going to see that point where we are going to require people to wear a mask,” says MacAfee.