Airlines, labor leaders continue to oppose domestic testing mandate

Mandating a negative COVID-19 test for domestic flights would devastate the US airline industry, which has already been decimated by the pandemic. “We believe such a mandate would be counterproductive, costly, and have serious unintended consequences, including for millions of people who have travel needs but may not have access to testing resources and for the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on a stable air travel industry,” said Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly. The Allied Pilots Association echoed similar statements, saying that “mandatory pre-flight testing would be unwarranted, logistically impractical, and wasteful, and it would seriously threaten the stability of our industry.”