Travel leaders wary of requiring negative COVID-19 test before flying
Travel leaders say they support all efforts to rid the world of the coronavirus pandemic — except for a mandate that would require airline passengers to present a negative COVID-19 test before flying.
The CEOs of American, United, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue airlines met with White House officials recently in a virtual meeting to discuss the proposal, and all of them — as well as key industry figures — say such a mandate would do more harm than good for U.S. carriers.
“We had a very positive, constructive conversation focused on our shared commitment to sciencebased policies as we work together to end the pandemic, restore air travel and lead our nation toward recovery,” said Nick Calio, head of the trade group Airlines for America.
The meeting was arranged after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that such a testing requirement was under consideration.
The Southwest Airlines pilots’ union said a testing mandate “would decimate domestic air travel demand, put aviation jobs at risk, and create serious unintended consequences.”
U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow said the high cost and low availability of testing make a domestic testing mandate a challenging concept to put into practice.
“Based on January 2021 data, a testing requirement for domestic air travel would necessitate a 42 percent increase in daily testing capacity nationwide —a substantial use of testing resources when air travel has already been shown to be safer than many other routine activities,” Dow said.