Tag Archives for coronavirus.
There are two new important testing developments in travel today, both United Airlines announcement. United is partnering to provide Covid testing for its San Francisco – Hawaii flights. They’re providing testing at the airport, and they’ve worked with Hawaii to accept an Abbott rapid test rather than just a PCR test.
The airline expects to expand this to other airports and destinations.
Covid-sniffing dogs were already tested in the UAE with 90% accuracy, now they’re being trialed in Helsinki. Two European airports will use a self-serve ‘Israeli gargle test’ which provides results in 15 minutes. Both are efforts to ensure travelers are all virus free, and give both passengers and governments confidence to travel the way we (mostly) used to.
An even better solution extends far beyond airports. Cheap, at home strip tests (think of something similar to a pregnancy test) that identify whether or not you’re Covid-positive. The primary obstacle to cheap daily at home testing isn’t technology, it’s the FDA. Set this up to read results through an app, and the app could become your passport not just to travel but also bring back indoor activities.
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson endorsed ‘hygiene theater’ explicitly speaking at Skift‘s Global Forum. He knows that some Covid efforts aren’t effective but sees them as important signaling tools anyway.
Sorenson has previously been an enthusiastic supporter of a strong central Chinese government and its response to Covid-19. At Skift he again talks about their success in handling the virus and simply says that the country’s authoritarianism “is what it is.”
While flights don’t seem to be significant causes of virus spread the same may not be true of other parts of the travel experience. 1812 TSA employees have tested positive for Covid-19. 92% of those are airport screeners. Miami has had 122 screeners test positive. New York JFK has had 112. And these numbers don’t include the most recent testing.
According to a former TSA federal security director it’s insane that the TSA continues with pat downs which he says are unnecessary.
There are many things about Thailand that look strange to outsiders but to locals are simply ‘very Thai’. And while there’s increasing pushback against the monarchy (despite lese majeste laws) and against a military junta that last year had to clarify they wouldn’t actually execute tourists for taking selfies at the Phuket airport there’s still much acceptance of things as they are, without reason or justification.
It may even seem perfectly normal that as Thailand looks at how they can re-open to tourism amidst the global pandemic that putting potential visitors through a 31 step process that involves prepaying a 90 day hotel stay can seem perfectly normal.
Tanzania is open to U.S. tourists. Should you go?
It hasn’t been clear to me what the situation on the ground is like, but my award booking partner Steve Belkin just spent two weeks there and files this report.
Documenting just a handful of cases where inflight spread may have occurred is significant as an argument for the safety of flying because there’s never been a virus studied as extensively and intensively in a short period of time as this one. There are millions of people flying throughout the world week after week during the global pandemic, yet we haven’t been able to identify more flights where the virus spread (though there are probably some). This – combined with airline cabin crew having a lower incidence of Covid-19 than the general population, is highly suggestive that inflight spread is very rare.
In mid-March Hawaii’s governor asked tourists not to come to the islands and then on March 26 imposed a 14 day quarantine on all arriving visitors. They couldn’t legally ban people from coming, but they could impose public health restrictions.
We’ve seen re-opening dates of August 1, and September 1, and now Hawaii is saying that visitors will be able to travel to Hawaii without 14 day quarantine starting October 15. In liqu of quarantine passengers will have to present a negative Covid test taken within 72 hours of arriving.
In a shrinking industry airline unions become akin to a Ponzi scheme, benefiting the first in at the expense of those who joined later. When American Airlines took payroll support money from the government, they paid senior flight attendants to stay home while making junior cabin crew work all of the flights. And while neither Southwest nor Delta are furloughing any flight attendants, it’s the junior crewmembers at American and United that are losing their jobs at the beginning of October.
One British Airways union is even appealing to the company to furlough workers – from a rival union.
It’s not just passengers refusing to wear personal protection equipment that’s a problem at the airline. It seems another problem is passengers who wear too much. So last week American Airlines sent a memo to its customer care agents on “Prohibited Personal Protection Equipment (PPE).”
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
