American, British Airways, Iberia, Lufthansa, and United have teamed up to call for coordinated COVID-19 testing as the path to end European Union and USA travel bans and restore transatlantic traffic.
Airlines: Testing Will Lead To Safe Re-Opening Of Air Travel
In a letter sent to European Commissioner for Home Affairs Tiva Johansson and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, the airlines propose a joint U.S. – EU COVID-19 testing program to restore confidence and resume air travel.
Although exceptions exist, most Europeans are banned from traveling to the USA and most U.S. residents are banned from traveling to the European Union.
Without a vaccine, the only realistic option to scaling up travel is the use of accurate, rapid, widespread testing. Thus far, each nation has taken a piecemeal approach to testing. Under the proposal, the EU and USA would work together on a coordinated approach that would take out many of the risk points for virus transmission.
Full Letter To U.S. And European Leaders
The letter was signed by:
- Scott Kirby – United Airlines CEO
- Doug Parker American Airlines CEO
- Carsten Spohr -Lufthansa CEO
- Willie Walsh – IAG CEO [British Airways + Iberia]
Here is the letter in full:
As the leading airline groups in Europe and the United States, we are writing with urgency to you as leaders of the response to COVID-19 to request the safe and swift restoration of air travel between the United States and Europe. We urge you to consider adopting a joint U.S. – EU COVID-19 testing program to enhance safety and build confidence in critical transatlantic passenger air services.
The response to this crisis continues to require the cooperation of governments, citizens and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic. Regarding passenger airline travel, we appreciate the leadership of aviation safety and health bodies within U.S. and EU institutions in issuing comprehensive guidelines to maximize the safety and health of passengers, crews and personnel at each step of the travel journey. These guidelines have much in common and form a solid basis on which to restart transatlantic travel safely. Many airlines and airports have also taken significant steps to protect passenger and employee health that often go beyond the government guidelines.
Given the unquestioned importance of transatlantic air travel to the global economy, as well as to the economic recovery of our businesses, we believe it is critical to find a way to re-open air services between the U.S. and Europe. In addition to all the significant and unprecedented actions that governments and airlines are taking to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, a coordinated COVID-19 testing program could be key to providing confidence to permit services to resume without quarantine requirements or other entry restrictions. COVID-19 testing is becoming more and more common throughout the world as a tool to avoid these other more intrusive measures. We recognize that testing presents a number of challenges, however, we believe that a pilot testing program for the transatlantic market could be an excellent opportunity for government and industry to work together and find ways to overcome obstacles and explore all solutions to protect health, build confidence, and safely restore passenger travel between the U.S. and Europe.
Nobody will benefit from a prolonged closure of this most indispensable corridor for global aviation.
CONCLUSION
In theory, a unified testing protocol makes perfect sense. But can the EU and USA work together in a timely fashion to institute such a program? That’s an open question. Perhaps both governments can look to Turkey, which seems to have pioneered exactly the sort of solution needed to re-open travel to the masses.
image: Lufthansa
It is very important that airlines ensure safety of passengers before they open for travel
Didn’t Greece have a big issue when a big amount of passengers tested positive on arrival? Imagine how many Americans would test positive. They need to be more clear on the procedure that follows, like will the entire flight be considered exposed and be subject to quarintine?
Overall, it sounds very messy. It’s very important that The US work harder to handle the issue at hand here, which is very large Covid numbers. There is no excuse for them in my opinion.
For U.S. travelers this would mean that Rapid Testing (like in the EU) would have to become widely available and reliable. This is clearly never going to happen. Most are waiting anywhere from 5-15 days as it is now. And Rapid Tests are only there for health care workers, hospital patients, politicians, and high profile celebrities and athletes.
The only other option is expand Rapid Testing sites in the EU for arriving passengers – as is done now in VIE, MUC, FRA. While not a perfect solution by any means, for those headed FROM the U.S. it is the only way as it is completely impossible to get a 72 hour pre travel result.
your window for results on the covid test are inaccurate, I think. last tested on July 24 and negative confirmation in just over 24 hours.
I don’t think this would be a popular idea with EU citizens, given it’s clear that — with the most sensitive tests — false negatives are quite common if you don’t test in the “sweet spot” after infection and, for rapid tests, the chance of a false negative is even higher.
I wish I could trust Americans to exercise good judgement about travel, but I can’t.
“But can the EU and USA work together in a timely fashion to institute such a program? That’s an open question. Perhaps both governments can look to Turkey, which seems to have pioneered exactly the sort of solution needed to re-open travel to the masses.”
The problem is that there’s no “EU government” — as you suggest in this paragraph — that could make decisions about a testing program. Instead, the Commission can just issue guidance to member states, which they are free to disregard. So, this isn’t a decision between two governments, but between over 30 governments — EU/EEA/UK countries — and is made even more challenging by the Schengen Zone, which this kind of policy could undermine if some member states are not yet comfortable with Americans traveling to their countries (i.e. they could close their Schengen borders).
The best way to restart travel between the U.S. and the EU is for the U.S. to fix its public health situation.
Your last point is certainly correct. The US fixing its own problem is the most expedient answer.
If that happened then this letter would not have been needed.
Yep yep yep.
This will not happen. Getting the pandemic under control in the USA is a prerequisite. Until that happens, the EU won’t budge – nor should they. The EU’s response will boil down to “get back to us when you get your sht together”.
That’s going to take a while. It won’t be until President Biden has a chance to dig us out a bit from the deep, deep hole that Trump has left us in. Only then will this be a reasonable step to take. As long as the US government fails completely on the basic pandemic control, nothing else can or will happen.
Proposing this now is idiotic. The pandemic is only getting worse here right now, not better. And we still have no national response plan – no plan to get enough PPE, no plan to get enough testing. Those very basic things have been desperately needed since last February, yet the national government just gave up and did nothing. THAT’S why we are pariahs and banned from the EU (and almost everywhere). That hasn’t changed, and won’t for a long time.
In the Spring of 2021, after a new administration has a little time to start repairing the damage, hopefully this can move forward. Until then, the US needs to own its failure, and stay the fck home.
Exactly right and by the time Biden (if elected) could do anything maybe a vaccine would be right around the corner. I really, really, want to get on a plane to Europe 0 this is the first year in many that I have not been but apparently a bunch of people in our country don’t believe experts or science, so we all suffer for it.
And correcting myself, 2020 already seems so long – I was in Europe early this year but would have been going back in the fall. Can’t believe I forgot that!
Ridiculous.
Sure. More partisan politics is the cure for disease. Why is it that internet trolls have to make everything about partisan politics and ruin a good website about travel?