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The Iata requires rapid passenger testing as an alternative to quarantine requirements. Lufthansa finds the concept exciting and wants to start from October.
The numbers are dramatic: the number of passengers in international air traffic has plummeted 92 percent in the last eight months compared to 2019. And there is still no clear upward trend in sight. According to the international air transport association Iata, this is in part because quarantine measures make travel impractical and frequent changes in Covid-19 measures make planning impossible.
“The key to restoring cross-border mobility is systematic Covid-19 testing of all travelers prior to departure. This gives governments the confidence to open their borders without complicated risk models where the rules for travel are constantly changing ”, says the Director General of Iata, Alexandre de Juniac. Testing all passengers restores the freedom to travel with confidence.
Like a pregnancy test
The fact that pre-departure testing may be easier in the future than with classic PCR testing is due to newer methods. However, some of them are still in development or testing. These are, for example, antigen tests based on the immunoassay method.
You can think of this as a pregnancy test: the sample material (in this case from the neck and throat area) is placed in a test cassette and you are given a buffer solution. About 15 minutes later, you will see whether or not the virus antigen is detected.
AUA also wants to test soon
The Lufthansa Group already takes it seriously. Björn Becker, who is responsible for customer experience on the ground, told Reuters news agency that they were planning to use rapid tests starting in October. Such tests would also be used at the Austrian Airlines subsidiary, according to the APA news agency.
A WUA spokeswoman confirms and specifies these plans: “The introduction should take place as soon as possible. However, we cannot give an exact time yet. In the aforementioned project, we are verifying the organizational flow of the process. “The spokeswoman said that a” national solution that will also be adopted by the authorities would be desirable for financing. “
This article first appeared on our partner portal Aviation Net Online.
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