LONDON, April 5 (Xinhua) -- London's Heathrow Airport will shut two terminals in the coming weeks due to the significantly reduced number of passenger flights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The airport will temporarily move airline operations from Terminals Three and Four into Terminals Two and Five in the coming weeks, according to a statement from its website.
"COVID-19 is an unpredictable epidemic that continues to have severe impacts on the global aviation industry...We cannot predict when operations will completely return to normal," it said.
"While the number of passenger flights operating out of Heathrow has reduced by 75 percent, we are making sure that cargo flights carrying essential medical supplies, ventilators and medicines, as well as food supplies, remain able to touch down in the UK," it said.
In the last week of March, Heathrow saw a 409 percent increase in cargo only air traffic, compared to the average seen before the pandemic. Over 40 percent of the Britain's pharmaceutical products such as medicines, vaccines and respirators, are imported via Heathrow.
A Virgin Atlantic flight touched down on Friday from China loaded solely with medical supplies such as ventilators and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to help the National Health Service (NHS) save lives and keep medical staff safe, according to the airport.
On March 28, a group of Chinese medical workers arrived at the airport to assist in the fight against COVID-19.
The 15-member team from east China's Shandong Province includes six medical experts specializing in disease prevention and control, traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine and psychological counselling, among others.
Figures from Heathrow shows that the airport served 80.1 million passengers in 2018, with a total of 475,624 flights taking off from the west London site in the same year.
