Despite a home order in much of California and a plea from health officials not to travel amid the worst coronavirus outbreak to date, many people are still flying in and out of Los Angeles International Airport.
In an effort to make travel as safe as possible, LAX on Thursday opened a rapid coronavirus test site on the premises.
For the record:
16:05, 31 December 2020An earlier version of this article states that coronavirus testing began at Tampa International Airport on Thursday. The airport began testing in October and announced Thursday that the program will be extended.
Justin Erbacci, CEO of Los Angeles World Airports, said the airport supports the health advice out there. “But we know that there are people who travel, and that there are people who are essential,” he said. “We want this place to help people who are traveling travel more healthily and safely.”
Pilots who book an appointment in advance at the laboratory, located opposite Terminal 6, will get results within three to five hours. The laboratory, located in a shipping container, processes about 250 to 300 rapid tests a day, and plans to set up up to 1,000 tests daily.
Additional test sites are at Terminal 2 and Tom Bradley International Terminal, which will deliver results within 24 hours.
The tests, known as PCR tests, are administered with a nose swab. Each costs $ 125, and the results are provided electronically. Appointments are strongly encouraged for all three sites, but the quick tests are filling up quickly, Erbacci said.
A trio of interim test sites opened at the airport in mid-November, delivering results within 24 hours. About 14,000 tests were applied to these sites.
The airport plans to conduct rapid antigen testing in about a week, officials said.
Although coronavirus testing is not a prerequisite for flying from LAX, some destinations – including Hawaii – do require negative PCR testing before traveling. Erbacci said on-site testing at LAX is an easy way to facilitate travel to destinations.
Other airports – and some airlines – also test passengers. Tampa International Airport began offering testing to all arriving and departing passengers in October and announced Thursday that the program will be extended to the new year, with the expectation that testing will take several more months.
Airlines, including United Airlines, American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines, offer either test kits sent per passenger’s home, or quick tests taken at or near airports.
Although local airports gradually increased, travelers were determined to spend the Christmas holidays with family and friends, but the travel did not increase as much as officials predicted.
Air travel from Dec. 17 to 29 was about 30% of what it was during the same period last year, said Heath Montgomery, a spokeswoman for LAX. That was less than the amount airport officials predicted in November, when they would estimate the passenger number during that time at about 50% of last year’s score.
Travel declined during the first two weeks of December after rising before Thanksgiving, Montgomery said. The numbers picked up again later in the month, with December 23 being the second busiest day of the year – the Friday before Thanksgiving. The pre-Christmas travel date has just over 43,000 passengers at the security checkpoints at LAX, about 40% of airport traffic on the same day last year.
The latest coronavirus boom and the new home order recently expanded for Southern California have ‘suppressed what it could have been,’ Montgomery said of the number of travelers.