New Innovations By Emirates And Etihad Offer A Glimpse Into Flying After The Shutdown

Travel is about to change drastically, especially for the airline industry. Most international fleets are grounded and we don’t really know when they’ll get back in the air (outside of repatriation flights, which are still flying). This week we got a peek into one way our experience of flying might be altered forever. Emirates gave blood tests to all passengers flying from Dubai to Tunis to test them for COVID-19 antibodies before boarding.

According to CNN, the blood tests are rapid tests that give results in ten minutes. The actual testing was carried out by real health officials from the Dubai Health Authority and not by airline staff. Emirates Chief Operating Officer, Adel Al Redha, said in a statement reported by CNN that they “are working on plans to scale up testing capabilities in the future and extend it to other flights.” Though companies will all develop their own policies, this feels like one iteration of what the future of flying might look like.

CNN makes it clear that the tests are not checking for active COVID-19 infection but the antibodies the body creates when fighting off the virus that you then carry with you. The report also notes that Etihad Airways is about to roll out a new “self-service kiosk” that’ll examine passenger’s heart rate, respiratory rate, and temperature and deem them fit to fly, or not. It’s probably very likely that if big-name carriers like Emirates and Etihad are getting ready for wider roll-outs of this nature, then other airlines are looking into doing the same when they get back in the air. When that actually happens is still anyone’s guess.

(Via CNN)