Airlines pin hopes on virus tests
Lengthy quarantine, restrictions contentious issues for industry
Canadian airlines haven’t gotten much of what they asked for from Justin Trudeau during the pandemic. With airports nearly empty, they’re now pinning their hopes on a testing experiment to convince the prime minister to relax some of the world’s strictest COVID -19 travel rules.
A new program in the western province of Alberta is testing international travellers for the virus on arrival. Participants who receive a negative result are allowed to get back to a near-normal life in about two days, though a second test is required several days later. Everyone else entering Canada must quarantine for 14 days, a rule that has not changed since March.
The lengthy quarantine and other restrictions — including a ban on almost all foreign tourists — have been a contentious point for a battered industry that Trudeau has balked at bailing out.
Traffic at airport security checkpoints in Canada was just 14 per cent of last year’s levels in the first 29 days of November, versus 37 per cent in the U.S., according to data by the countries’ transport security authorities.
Trudeau said Tuesday his government has no plans to open Canada’s borders soon. With widespread vaccination still months away, airlines are hanging on the testing experiment by the Alberta and federal governments as a ray of hope.
“It has taken some time, but we’re starting to see some footsteps in the snow,” Andrew Gibbons, director of government relations for Calgary-based WestJet Airlines Ltd., said in an interview. The goal is to turn the program into a national one that will allow shorter quarantine times, he said, relieving pressure on financially stressed airlines.
WestJet says international bookings have grown by double-digit rates since the announcement of the Alberta test. Yet about 135 of its 181 planes remain parked, a sign of anemic demand for air travel.