Pittsburgh airport to offer COVID-19 testing
At Pittsburgh International Airport, you soon will be able to get a COVID-19 test along with a boarding pass.
Starting Monday, the Findlay airport will be offering testing in the airside building for arriving and departing travelers.
It will take place on concourse A across from gate 2 in a converted retail space with privacy curtains and physically distanced seating.
Airport officials are teaming with Savannah, Ga.-based Tackl Health to offer two forms of testing — rapid antigen and polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
The rapid antigen test, which will provide results within 15 minutes, will cost $95. The PCR test, with results available in 24 to 48 hours on average, will run $125. A package deal is available for $175. No health insurance is accepted.
The tests are optional. Pittsburgh International joins a growing number of airports across the country to offer testing, including Philadelphia, JFK and LaGuardia in New York, Los Angeles International, Newark, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Seattle-Tacoma.
Airports in London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Rome, Hong Kong, and Japan also have it available.
“The goal of this program is to provide our passengers with a convenient testing option so they can continue to travel confidently and comply with state travel orders,” said Bryan Dietz, the airport’s vice president of air service development.
Some states, including Pennsylvania, require visitors to quarantine
for up to two weeks upon arrival unless they can produce a negative COVID-19 test.
Testing will be offered from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Passengers can either schedule an appointment or walk in. The airport expects to be able to administer up to 500 tests a day.
While airport officials will not be privy to traveler test or health information, TACKL will report positive results to the state health
department, spokesman Bob Kerlik said. As part of the state order, passengers are not required to show test results when entering the airport, checking in for a flight or before boarding a plane, nor is the airport responsible for enforcement, he added.
The program is the latest initiative set up by the airport to combat the virus. It also requires people to wear face coverings while in the airport and has deployed
UV-equipped floor scrubbers, added hand sanitizing stations, including a touchless one it is introducing this week, and reconfigured seating.
In addition, the trams that whisk travelers between the landside and airside buildings now run one after the other to prevent crowding.