United Airlines Trials Coronavirus-Free Flights

I saw a comment elsewhere that someone was bothered by the false-positive rate and how that may land a person who wasn't sick in EWR for 3 days. I generally support this idea. Both the US and UK are a s**tshow at virus containment so I don't think it's going to stem the infection rates, but the last thing I need is to get sick in transit.

If everyone on board has tested negative, will passengers still be required to wear masks? If not then that could be a good selling point. Otherwise the testing seems kind of pointless since there's really no benefit to passengers from going through with it (and significant downside if they actually test positive and are prevented from traveling altogether).

So you need to be tested 3 hours before departure? I guess no more connecting pax for this flight! This won’t be sustainable in the long run, especially while overall demand is down.

+1, same here @ PH

Perhaps on to something, but that particular test has a high rate of false negatives. They need to use better tests.

"I do suppose it at least sends the message to governments that “hey, we’re ready to start doing testing for travel if you’ll ease restrictions,” even if there are questions about scalability."

This is exactly why they're doing it. I applaud any attempt at a creative solution to ease restrictions prior to the vaccine.

Very sneaky of United tbh. They are essentially making passengers on these flights act as lab rabbits with absolutely no benefit to the passengers themselves- rather a higher chance of exposure possible due to early airport arrival and sitting around the gates 3+ hours before the flight. You still must wear masks (good), you can't skip the "mandatory" quarantine on arrival and same level of reduced COVID era service inflight. So how is this supposed to help? Will they track all these passengers to prove that didn't contract covid say on the way to the airport (7-14 day incubation!)...or didn't contract it at the departure airport?

Lastly, for most part of the pilot period, UA only has the one flight from EWR-LHR (in fact the last flight of the day from EWR-LHR) so if you decline the test you're basically stuck in EWR till the next day and will likely have to now connect in IAD?

What about connecting passengers with well a 45min connection, where and how will they be tested?!

I hate to point this out, but it is another example of how Americans refuse to listen to the facts. How many times have you hear executes coming out saying how safe their places are by "deep cleaning"? Yes, cleaning the surfaces is ONE thing that is needed to keep customer safe, but it's far from the most important thing. It's as if we are all looking for a one single easy-to-apply (and understand) solution that will let us forget the virus completely. Even a vaccine is not going to bring us that! Pre-flight testing? Good to have, of course. But the person gets tested can easily be re-infected between the time he/she is tested and before boarding.

So In Australia you get tested on day 4 and 14 of quarantine. There are generally still a few positives each day from hotel quarantine.
Testing is not mandatory but strongly encouraged. If you do not do it, then you get to stay longer - at your expense. If there are religious (or other) concerns they will deal with them on a case by case basis.
Personally if it meant I could travel again, I would do it.

I am supposed to leave fora 4 month holiday in 2 hours. Starting in Berlin (so jealous of you Ben), included 3 weeks in Antarctica, Galapagos, the Guyanas, Calala Island and skiing in the US. I am excited though - I get to go to a friends house who lives OUTSIDE 5 kms! Feeling a little sad.

Kam - I don't think that holds. If you are infected now, you are not contagious now. Most articles say it takes about two days so for the duration of the flight < 24 hours in most cases.

However, it also takes some days after infection to test positive. So it could be your test negative now but over the next hours, become contagious and/or test positive.

Quite a few airlines are now trialing these tests, so we'll see the results and if such cases come up.

*Most articles say it takes about two days, so for the duration of the flight, < 24 hours in most cases, you would not become contagious if infected after the test.

Why on earth would ANYONE pick this time consuming and risky option when you can pick any other flight to UK without these rules.

If you are someone who actually booked this flight please explain your thinking

No way I'm letting the airline test me. I'll chose my provider and type of test.

Despite how Cuomo fudged on his criteria for what state travelers must be quarantined coming into NY, NJ is problematic with COVID cases rising. Don't think I want to catch any flights out of Newark, NJ despite Cuomo's thumbs up!

Frankly, this and all testing schemes for traveling are pointless, and 14-day quarantines with a test at the end are the gold standard.

A test is simply a snapshot in time. One can get the virus and not test positive for days while still being contagious for a portion of that time. One can also get the virus when interacting with airport/airline workers, customs officials, and other passengers during the trip.

All the governments throughout the world should agree upon a strict definition of "essential" travel and prevent people from traveling who are NOT "essential" travelers.

Based upon basic statistics. Approx 500 million (1 in 14 people on the planet) have been infected! This is accounting for what they feel are the overall infection rates.

So 1 in 14 people in the world have been infected.

So now sit back and think on that.

Not to mention that they say over 1 million people in the USA get tested daily (LOL) Until this year, 2.5 million people cleared TSA daily in the US, so think on that.

This is about control!

@Pete

ok, boomer. Let's just stay home for the rest of our lives, shall we?

14-day quarantine is a length of time chosen almost arbitrarily. In China it's 7 days. In Switzerland it's 10 days. Germany is moving later in November towards a system of 10 days, but you can "test out" after 5 days. 14 days is not the "gold standard", it is unnecessary because such a long incubation is incredibly rare. Most likely if somebody is suddenly positive after 14 days, they got infected at the place they were quarantining.
Rapid tests are so inaccurate to be almost useless, if you get a "positive" you have an overwhelming likelihood of actually being negative. So it is not a good tool for pre-flight testing.
Elsewhere (at Frankfurt airport for example) you can get tested within 6 hours with a reasonably accurate PCR test. It's not cheap but not that much money either (about $150 for the 6-hour express test).
If you test positive or negative with a PCR test, it very likely reflects reality -- it would be sufficient, and can eliminate the need for quarantine. After all, if one case slips through every couple of weeks or months, it's not the end of the world, and can be contact traced. With a PCR test you would catch 99% of infected people before they board the plane. (Right now the situation is out of control because it is a torrent, a cascade of cases going all over the place, all the time. Contact tracing is no longer possible with such infection rates. And the US hasn't done any steps to set up a contact tracing system anyway)
The US is still not able to handle enough testing, after 7 months, when much of the world has figured it out already. I think that's the main theme. It seems as though absolutely nothing has happened in over 7 months, we haven't even started to implement any solutions that would get us out of this crisis. The message is always "carry on. it'll go away on its own. It's not that bad"
It has shown the complete incompetence of the federal government, and what we are seeing is a cautionary tale for what happens when you gut agencies like the CDC and staff them with ignorant sycophants, or appoint somebody to head the Post office or the EPA who wants to abolish them. All these agencies used to work, and can work -- and if they did, voting by mail would work smoothly, the pandemic would have been contained in March and tens of millions of people wouldn't be out of work.

Hard avoid. I have to connect at EWR and the connection times won't allow for it. And if my earlier flight is delayed and I miss my appointment I would be stuck for another day. Also if somebody is positive, whether false or an accurate result, then what? I am assuming I will be stuck at EWR. And lastly with only one lounge open in terminal C why would I want to be there any longer than necessary. Sort of a good idea but logistically it just doesn't work.