Cebu Pacific Air will conduct a trial where passengers are tested at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport before flights to the southern city of General Santos. From 3 to 14 December, passengers will undergo a free antigen test prior to boarding their flight, says the carrier. Only passengers who test negative will be allowed to board. Test Before Boarding (TBB) will be the only test that passengers need to take before travelling to General Santos, which is at the southernmost tip of the Philippines on the island of Mindanao. TBB, however, will require passengers to travel to the airport five hours before boarding. “Safety has always been our topmost priority and in this current environment, health is part of safety,” says Candice Iyog, the airline’s vice president for marketing and customer experience. “We look forward to the results of this pilot so we can pave way for a more confident restart of non-essential travel and a standardisation of requirements across all Philippine destinations. We would also like to laud General Santos City for piloting TBB with us.” The airline adds that it employs a number of other measures, such as daily disinfection of aircraft. As with other carriers in the Asia-Pacific, Covid-19 has made 2020 an extremely difficult year for Cebu Pacific. For its third quarter to 30 September, it swung to an operating loss of Ps6.7 billion ($139 million), compared with an operating profit of Ps873 million a year earlier. Revenue for the period plummeted 89% to Ps2 billion, outpacing a 52% year-on-year decline in expenses. The revenue decline was led by a dramatic 97% drop in passenger revenue year on year.

Quarantine requirements for passengers on Delta Air Lines flights from Atlanta to Rome are to be eliminated through the use of enhanced testing for Covid-19. Delta says the pilot scheme will see departing passengers complete a molecular or antigenic test up to 72 hours before departure, a rapid antigen test at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport and a further antigen test upon arrival at Rome Fiumicino. A rapid test would also be required in Rome before departure back to the US. The first flights as part of the scheme are scheduled to take place in December, with Aeroporti di Roma noting that the programme could also include New York's JFK and Newark airports. The pilot builds on experience gained from Covid-tested services between Rome and Milan that have been in operation since 16 September, as well as the existing rapid-testing facilities at Fiumicino. Since mid-August there has been a rapid-testing facility in the arrivals section of Terminal 3, with results available in less than 30 minutes, as well as a drive through testing facility at the airport's car park. "Carefully designed Covid-19 testing protocols are the best path for resuming international travel safely and without quarantine until vaccinations are widely in place," states Delta executive vice-president Steve Sear. The carrier highlights that based on research from expert advisors at the Mayo clinic, the chance of contracting Covid-19 on a flight that is 60% full is roughly one in a million.

Embraer has issued a service bulletin allowing operators of its 50-seat ERJ-145 regional jet to install high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, with the first kits to be delivered by next month. The Brazilian airframer, which took five and a half months to develop the kit, adds that it is completing work for HEPA filter kits for the ERJ-140 and ERJ-135 “very soon”. It adds: “The kits for the first 70 aircraft are already being assembled and should be delivered by mid-December.” “Given the moment we are living, developing a HEPA filter service bulletin for the ERJ-145 is a must-have solution Embraer developed for making cabin conditions even safer for passengers,” says Johann Bordais, president and chief executive, Embraer Services & Support. HEPA filters have been in the spotlight recently amid the global coronavirus pandemic, as airframers and airlines tout their ability to trap most bacteria, viruses and fungi. HEPA filters are already a standard feature on Embraer’s later generation of aircraft, such as the E-jet family, and on Embraer Executive Jets.