Passengers travelling through Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports are being ordered to cover their faces and wear gloves from today.
Manchester Airports Group, which owns the three airports, said the measure is designed to "demonstrate one way in which air travel can be made safe".
The airports are believed to be the first in the UK to implement such stringent hygiene rules.
Passengers are encouraged to bring their own gloves and face coverings or masks, but they will be provided in the early stages of the trial.
All airport staff serving passengers will wear gloves and face masks.
The airports will also conduct temperature screening trials over the next few weeks, and are considering requiring passengers to make a health declaration before they are allowed to enter.
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MAG chief executive Charlie Cornish said: "It's clear that social distancing will not work on any form of public transport. But we're confident that when the time is right, people will be able to travel safely.
"MAG has been working with the rest of the airport industry on a new safety framework for travel.
"We now need to work urgently with Government to agree how we operate in the future. This has to be a top priority so that people can be confident about flying, and to get tourism and travel going again.
"At MAG we've taken expert medical advice on how people can travel safely, and we're pleased to be piloting these new measures at our airports for those passengers who do still need to travel.
"We expect to be able to agree a new framework by the end of May that will support a restart of the industry as soon as possible."
Heathrow, the UK's busiest airport, announced of Wednesday that it will soon begin temperature screening of arriving passengers.
CEO, John Holland-Kaye has revealed that temperature screening is just one of a number of technologies and processes which could form the basis of a Common International Standard for health screening at all global airports.
He told the Transport Committe that other concepts under review as part of the Heathrow trials include; UV sanitation, which could be used to quickly and efficiently sanitise security trays; facial recognition thermal screening technology to accurately track body temperature; and contact-free security screening equipment to reduce person-to-person contact.
The aim of the collective measures being trialled is to reduce the risk of contracting or transmitting Covid-19 while travelling.
The package of measures that will need to be adopted will consist of tried and tested processes and technology as well as innovations new to the airport environment.
Before any new measures are rolled out across the airport, they will be reviewed against Heathrow’s three tests to ensure that they are medically grounded, build consumer confidence and practical for airports to deliver.
The first of these trials will be a temperature screening technology which uses camera detection systems capable of monitoring the temperatures of people moving through the airport.
These passenger-facing trials will first be conducted in the airport’s immigration halls.
If successful, the equipment will then be rolled out to departures, connections and colleague search areas. The trials will begin in the next two weeks in Terminal 2.
As an international hub airport we will need to follow an international standard and we are already required to carry out temperature checks by some other countries.
