Heathrow to offer GBP80 rapid coronavirus test for departures

Passengers flying from Heathrow will from Tuesday be able to get tested for Covid-19 for GBP80 with a result within an hour, the UK airport has announced. A purpose-built facility run by two private firms, Collinson and Swissport, will allow rapid coronavirus checks for passengers flying to destinations that require pre-departure tests, including Hong Kong and Italy. Airlines including BA, Virgin Atlantic and Cathay Pacific are among the first to be offering these to passengers in Terminals 2 and 5. “Many other countries are already using testing to keep their borders safe while restarting trade and travel,” said John Holland-Kaye, CE of Heathrow. “These facilities will make it easier for passengers going to those countries to get a test and have the potential to provide a service for arriving passengers.” Transport secretary Grant Shapps has meanwhile set a target of December 1 to have in place faster privately manufactured coronavirus tests that could halve quarantine times for overseas arrivals to the UK. The new “test and release” system could shorten to seven days the two-week quarantine currently imposed on people flying in from foreign countries with high rates of Covid-19 infection. “My ministerial colleagues and I have agreed a regime based on a single test provided by the private sector and at the cost of the passenger after a period of self-isolation,” Shapps said. The testing capacity of the NHS would not be affected, he added. “Public Health England will set the quality for the test itself and then it will be up to the private sector to provide a test up to that quality,” he added. It is unclear whether arrivals would receive a testing kit in the airport to administer at home themselves or have to return to the airport to be tested under the government’s plans.<br/>