COVID testing of air travellers – could be the last straw

‘A new brush sweeps clean’, as the saying goes, and it hasn’t taken forthright airline personality Willie Walsh long to put down a marker as the new Director General of IATA.

Mr Walsh’s target of the week is the rising and unacceptable cost of PCR testing for the coronavirus, which is adding such a burden to the price of airline tickets that it is making air travel simply unattractive to far too many people. Air travel is in danger of becoming once again the preserve of the rich with too much time on their hands.

Leisure travel faces a bleak future, and business travel doesn’t look like it will pick up sufficiently to cover the leisure losses.

Mr Walsh, who was interviewed in CAPA Live this month (12-May), wants governments to pick up the bill for testing that is a World Health Organisation regulation, but that is hardly on the cards while those governments struggle with mounting debts and borrowing requirements; and decline to reduce aviation taxes. (At least one group airport operator – the biggest in the world, mind – wants to increase charges!)

Summary:

• New IATA Director General Walsh* takes aim at governments over cost of PCR testing.
• The cost of testing is adding unacceptable burdens on air travel.
• Leisure travel is being priced out for many, but business travel will not compensate.
• ‘Staycations’ becoming very popular in some countries.
• Governments highly unlikely to pick up the tab.
• Airport charges going up in Spain – just when those increases aren’t needed.
• The private sector investors in airports must share some pain.
• Just how much do governments care about air transport anyway?