American Airlines told its employees last week that the new CDC testing requirement for passengers to travel to the U.S. is going smoothly. Chief Customer Officer Alison Taylor reported that there have been a few instances of passengers showing up with negative tests that were too old, but overall reported no other issues.
That may have been true if she was looking at data for American’s Cancun hub, but it’s definitely not the case for people returning home from the Dominican Republic, across several airlines.
Numerous passengers who arrived yesterday to travel to the United States without having negative PCR and antigen tests against Covid-19 were stranded at the José Francisco Pela Gómez Las Américas airport and at the Ciboa airport when the new restriction measures of the North American authorities went into effect.
…[N]umerous travelers who intended to take the test at the Amadita clinical laboratory did not have that service available, because it did not start yesterday as scheduled…The passengers who were stranded because they did not have the PCR and Antigen test with them had made reservations on United Airlines and JetBlue flights to New York City.
The CDC accepts antigen tests, and results can be provided in less than 30 minutes. If we want everyone tested for travel (or for any other activity) we need to make testing convenient and inexpensive. If you’re going to fly, show up at the airport, get tested, and go.
You may say you don’t want people who haven’t been tested going to the airport but that’s happening anyway, some airports are providing testing now, and they are going someplace for their testing. Put it out in the airport parking lot if you wish so it’s outdoors and more Covid-safe in a case anyone shows up positive.
I’d suggest that airports do it rather than airlines but there’s limits to their ability to spend, for instance, CARES Act money on this without FAA approval. And that signoff, if it comes, can take months that we don’t have.
When did American open a Cancun hub? I think they’d be surprised to hear that they have a hub there.
Totally agree. Saliva Direct tests were estimated to cost $5 at retail but are barely available because we aren’t incentivizing the outcomes we want from testing yet. I hope that we’ll get there one day soon.
I’m very familiar with the Cabo area. Most resort and timeshare hotels now offer Covid testing 3 days before your return flight with results back to you the day after the test. The resorts I am familiar with charge between $17-25/pp for the test. Several currently provide free accommodations for up to 14 days IF you test positive and can not take your outbound flight.
agree and don’t know why this hasn’t been done already even if not 100% fool proof
Some layer of protection is better than none
I agree that airlines should do this ASAP to help their passengers. However; in my opinion, the CDC should be funding this effort. It was completely unreasonable for them to impose a new requirement, without providing sufficient notice and time to implement it.
@jamesb2147 what do you mean about incentivizing the outcomes that you want regarding the tests? I agree that the tests should be cheaper and that it is a rip off that five dollar tests cost more than that.
@Jason that’s a bit tongue-in-check but it’s much joked about inside AA
Tom Nevers Field is now offering rapid tests. If they can do it, then any airport can.
One additional thought: My understanding was that the regulation allowed for airlines to request waivers from the CDC for instances where it would be a hardship for one to get a test. It seems that if the testing center had not opened as of yet, this should have been the perfect instance for a waiver. It is problematic that the CDC is unwilling to grant waivers, when waivers are a part of the regulation.
@Jason and @Gary Leff, It’s too bad that there is no Admirals Club in Cancun if they joke about it being a hub.
Thanks Gary – Under reported that simple antigen tests count for intl arrivals – makes me less concerned about intl travel
Rapid tests don’t work. 20% of actual positive cases come back negative.
This is how Trump caught Covid: he didn’t understand that rapid testing is unreliable.
Here in Australia a company has just won a contract to provide these tests to the USA even though they are banned in this country.
Ultimately the US is experiencing an economic catastrophe due to the terrifying expenditure on treating Covid patients. Whereas Australia has zero community transmission and a much more intact economy.
People need to stop trying to create unsafe pretexts for prematurely permitting mass air travel. These tests are just another such bogus pretext.
Air travel will be unsafe and hospitals will remain overwhelmed until 80% of the population is vaccinated.
No jab no fly is an essential concept: if too many people decline the jab then we should all be grounded.
Current US infection levels prove that Thanksgiving and Christmas travel was just a form of Russian Roulette – except the travellers were pointing the gun at their elderly relatives rather than themselves.
David F,
before you throw stones, you might want to 1. realize that Australia is an island, like New Zealand and several countries of E. Asia and 2. The US’ per capita death rate and its rate of increase over the past two months has been no worse than, in some cases better than, a number of countries in Europe. The US just happens to be the largest single developed country that accurately tests and reports its covid stats to the world. The EU doesn’t want to be unified when talking about covid stats; they want each country to report their own data – but they would be above the US if they reported as one bloc.
Good news is that covid infection rates are falling around the world.
We’ll figure out how to deal w/ covid in time for the next crisis.
@DavidF – “actual positives” is way underspecified. the early pandemic abbot test the white house was using isn’t representative of current tests. and what antigen tests are great for is identify current infectiousness. they aren’t good for identifying past infectiousness where there’s still dead virus remaining. If it takes 45 PCR cycles to identify virus an antigen test won’t pick that up, absolutely.
@guflyer – I don’t mean positive/negative “results,” I mean, we shouldn’t be paying at all for results that take >24hrs and/or below some level of accuracy and/or that are painful and/or require specialized lab equipment. We could incentivize this by only paying for the tests we want instead of treating them all like they’re equal. This is from August and is somehow still relevant: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/bill-gates-on-covid-19-most-tests-are/
David F then you take the jab. We can fly with out it.
@Tim Dunn
We in Australia and New Zealand are used to the usual excuses for why the US, EU and UK have failed both to match Australia’s success at squashing the virus AND at keeping the economy intact.
They tell us we are an island, yet we are the same size as the US mainland – and you didn’t import the virus from Canada or Mexico.
They tell us our population density is low, and ignore the fact that a higher percentage of our population lives in towns and cities than in the US, UK or EU.
They tell us we are not connected to the rest of the world, when we actually had flights from China to multiple cities a year ago.
The bottom line is that we are a society in which politicians do what the doctors tell them to do. And that’s why our economy is working better than the economy in the US, UK and EU. And I hate to say that because I LOVE the US and UK and I feel so sorry for the self-inflicted mess that they find themselves in.
When our medical experts say close borders we do – even state borders. It has allowed us to reduce our lockdowns to very short durations.
And when they throw out nonsense fake science – quack cures and rapid testing and pre-departure testing – it keeps us safe, and our economy working.
My state has 5 million people and we got Coronavirus from Wuhan before anywhere in the US did. But we haven’t had a Covid death for 7 months. We watch sports in full stadia, our kids to go to school, we eat in indoor restaurants, and we don’t wear masks. I’ve had two vacations by air to parts of the country 700 and 1400 miles away.
But we have those freedoms because we sacrifice open borders to have them.
We don’t try to have those freedoms courtesy of bogus rapid testing!
This article is about nonsense fake science as a pretext for premature, reckless and self-destructive economic activity.
And I say that as a doctor!
My suggestion is to get tested before heading to the airport, while still having a hotel room, If you can.
Better to still have a hotel room to go back to if the test comes back positive than to be at the airport on your attempted way out of the country only to find yourself positive for Covid-19 but no certain place to stay before you get cleared to travel.
Airlines should partner with city-center lab testing providers and may even be able to make it a revenue stream of sort.
@ David F. You begin your counter argument about being an island by saying you are the same size as the US. But end it with.
But we have those freedoms because we sacrifice open borders to have them.
Sounds like walled off island behavior to me. Something that is not realistic to the US and the EU.