UA Pre-flight COVID Testing for SFO-Hawai'i (and other destinations)
 

United Airlines Becomes First U.S. Carrier to Make COVID-19 Tests Available to Customers

United teams up with GoHealth Urgent Care and Color to make COVID-19 testing easy to obtain for customers traveling from San Francisco International to Hawaii

Airline worked alongside Hawaii government to align tests to meet state requirements, so customers who return a negative result are not required to quarantine

Testing will be available starting October 15

Full story

Hopefully, they will expand this to all Hawaii bound flights. But wonder what their capacity to test several hundred people and produce the results at SFO. Typically there is a flight to each of the islands departing around 9am. So conceivably 800 people could seek rapid tests around 7:30 every morning.

It would be nice if they could add it to EWR so that they can start their new EWR-OGG route on time! It would also be beneficial for EWR-HNL as well.

“GoHealth Urgent Care's dedicated COVID-19 testing area will be available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT daily.”

This is from the Hub post. Not sure they are contemplating testing for a morning bank of flights.

And here I thought United was making all pilots take a Covid-19 test, pre-flight!

....need a third cup of coffee!

Frankly, this would be a very positive step forward to do this for ALL flights! Without doubt it would yield superior results when compared to face masks which have very limited effectiveness.

They're going to charge $250 per test. File this under "how to generate ancillary revenue from a pandemic."

The Abbott rapid test is an antigen test. I thought Hawaii was going to require a PCR test, which I didn't think the Abbott test was one. But hopefully United has worked this out with the Hawaiian government. Good news if indeed true.

From the Abbott website:

https://www.abbott.com/IDNOW/IDNOW-COVID-19-FAQ.html

Not sorted yet; they are working on it currently.


(link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-unlock-travel)

Yeah, sounds like one would have to take two trips to airport for morning departures - one for testing in the 2nd or 3rd day before flight and a second for the flight. Works for SF area originators, not for connecting passengers. Afternoon flights probably OK with longer connections, or the mail option. $250? The Lt. Governor was talking $160 for one of the tests. Family of 4 - $1000. Ouch.

I'm curious if this could be worked out for Canadians (we will likely still be quarantining on the way home, unless our government works something out with rapid testing here too, but you still need some quarantine as many false negatives apparently so a second test maybe) so we could fly to SFO direct then have a stopover of some length (a day perhaps, whatever), get tested, then continue on to Hawaii.

It'll be the invasion of maple leafs I would bet if so.

Exactly! I'd be happy to take a test before a flight and be allowed to not wear a mask. That would be the right approach.

That's on the low side of most costs that other private parties are offering for quick response testing
such as https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32602122-post345.html
and https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/coro...ng-travel.html

Suspect the price will drop with time and more competition

Masks will still be required.
1) Some will opt to not pay for tests and self-quarantine on arrival (mainly returning residents)
2) Others will take be taking the non-quick result tests and will be getting results after arrival.
3) United (or any other airline) is not going to police who or who has not taken the airport test w/ negative result
4) The testing protocol addresses solely the quarantine issue on arrival, not the mask requirement.

What's a "normal" life? Taking a vacation in Hawaii with the minor inconvenience of wearing a mask, or sitting at home because one refuses to? Hawaii (and United) will welcome the former. You still are required to wear masks in hotels, airports, stores, etc in Hawaii (regardless of a negative test result).