News: Coventry airport experiments with umbrellas
Flights > News > # 350 (02/04/2005)
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Coventry airport’s customer service director Mike Morton has revealed exclusively to Flightmapping how the airport attempted an experiment to assist customers in getting to and from the terminal when it was raining.
Following on from a discussion in the airport supporters’ forum, Flightmapping asked Mr Morton if the airport had ever considered providing umbrellas, or any other device, which might protect the passengers from getting wet when it was raining, especially as Coventry's main rival airport, Birmingham, still used airbridges for many of its flights.
Mr Morton said that an experiment had been tried with the airport bus service, but not actually for boarding the planes. He said:
"We did try purchasing a set of umbrellas for passengers to use when they alighted from the airport parking bus, so they could reach the terminal without getting any wetter.
Unfortunately, we found it difficult to keep control of this operation, and whilst the majority of passengers were happy to hand them back in when they got to the terminal building, the umbrellas still went missing quite rapidly."
When asked if this system might have worked any better to help passengers who were getting wet when boarding the aircraft, Mr Morton said:
“There would be serious problems in dropping umbrellas of at the entrance door of the aircraft, especially as we want to get the flights in the air as soon as possible. What we would like to consider is an extension of the piers, and possibly to try out the sort of plastic tunnel which is often used at football grounds. We are not sure what our friends at Warwick District Council might think of this though".
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Comment:
Getting rained on when trying to board an aircraft is one of the less pleasant experiences of no-frills flyi
