Qantas upbeat on new quick COVID-19 tests
By Geoffrey Thomas Wed Sep 2, 2020
Australia's Qantas is upbeat on the potential of new 15-minute COVID-19 tests to open up international and domestic travel.
Speaking at the online CAPA Australia Pacific Aviation Summit Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said that there are great developments in testing that could resolve the issue of people needing to go into quarantine.
Mr. Joyce was referring to a breakthrough by Abbott Laboratories of a new COVID-19 test that costs just $5 and takes 15 minutes for a result.
Mr. Joyce suggests that this could open the way for travel bubbles between countries with similar COVID-19 cases and strategies.
He added that there are great developments and progress in testing that could resolve the quarantine issue which is a massive impediment to travel.
"Those tests are super-fast, 15 minutes or so,” Mr. Joyce said.
According to website Executivetraveller.com, Mr. Joyce added that the airline would build its international recovery around the Boeing 787.
“The 787s will be the right aircraft coming out of COVID, because it will give us a very broad network with a good mix of premium cabins, and allows us to operate routes that avoid stopovers like Perth to London and Perth to Paris, which we think there’ll be an even a bigger business case for doing post-COVID,” Executivetraveller.com reported Mr Joyce saying.
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