AIRPORT bosses have revealed the impact the pandemic has had on passenger numbers.

Manchester Airport Group (MAG), revealed that passenger numbers are down 95 per cent at Stansted Airport from last year.

The airport handled 44,259 in March, compared with over 800,000 a year earlier and 2,108,749 in 2019.

In March 2019, MAG served more than four million passengers, compared to 2021 when it served 140,000- a 97 per cent decrease.

Now the group, who own Stansted, Manchester and East Midlands airports are calling for greater cooperation between governments to track new Covid variants.

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Currently, the UK Government proposes that all passengers – even those returning from the lowest risk ‘green’ destinations – will have to take a PCR test.

But MAG say these are "expensive" and framework should be improved "urgently".

CEO, Charlie Cornish said: “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.

“We now need Government to confirm the17th May start date as soon as possible, along with the list of countries that fall into each ‘traffic light’ category.

“But 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.

MAG is calling for a fourth, restriction-free category in addition to the 'traffic light' framework which categorises countries as red, amber or green based on the risk associated with visiting them.

Mr Cornish added: “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.

“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.