The IATA also sought governments to adopt the recent WHO guidelines to consider exemption of vaccinated travellers from testing requirements.
High cost of Covid-19 tests is preventing the international travellers to plan their journey. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has called upon the governments to initiate measures to address the issue.
It urged flexibility in allowing the use of cost-effective antigen tests as an alternative to more expensive PCR tests.
Adopt recent World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines
The IATA also sought governments to adopt the recent WHO guidelines to consider exemption of vaccinated travellers from testing requirements.
The IATA did a survey on passengers opinion about the Covid tests. 86 per cent of respondents are willing to get tested. But 70 per cent also believe that the cost of testing is a significant barrier to travel, while 78 per cent believe governments should bear the cost of mandatory testing.
Restarting international travel is vital to supporting the 46 million travel and tourism jobs around the world that rely on aviation.
“IATA supports Covid-19 testing as a pathway to reopening borders to international travel. But our support is not unconditional. In addition to being reliable, testing needs to be easily accessible, affordable, and appropriate to the risk level. Too many governments, however, are falling short on some or all of these. The cost of testing varies widely between jurisdictions, with little relation to the actual cost of conducting the test. The UK is the poster child for governments failing to adequately manage to test. At best it is expensive, at worst extortionate. And in either case, it is a scandal that the government is charging VAT,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director-General.
The new generation of rapid tests costs less than $10 per test. Provided a confirmatory RT-PCR test is administered for positive test results, WHO guidance sees Ag-RDT antigen testing as an acceptable alternative to PCR. And, where testing is a mandatory requirement, the WHO’s
International Health Regulations (IHRs) state that neither passengers nor carriers should bear the cost of testing.
Testing also needs to be appropriate to the threat level. For example, in the UK, the latest National Health Service data on testing arriving travellers show that more than 1.37 million tests were conducted on arrivals from so-called Amber countries.
Just 1 per cent tested positive over four months. Meanwhile, nearly three times that number of positive cases are being detected in the general population daily.
“Data from the UK government confirms that international travelers pose little to no risk of importing COVID-19 compared to existing levels of infection in the country. At the very least, therefore, the UK government should follow WHO guidance and accept antigen tests that are fast, affordable, and effective, with a confirmatory PCR test for those who test positive. This could be a pathway for enabling even unvaccinated people to access to travel,” Walsh said.
Restarting international travel is vital to supporting the 46 million travel and tourism jobs around the world that rely on aviation. “Our latest survey confirms that the high cost of testing will bear heavily on the shape of the travel recovery. It makes little sense for governments to take steps to reopen borders if those steps make the cost of travel prohibitive to most people. We need a restart that is affordable for all,” said Walsh.