Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa Group, said the airline was focused on ‘testing, testing, testing’ for Covid-19 as a way to resume routes, particularly those to North America. Spohr predicted that it would be a ‘difficult winter for all of us’, during an interview at the World Aviation Festival Virtual event.

Testing will be more efficient in coming months

“In the month of October, I think we will see governments accepting antigen tests as a procedure for testing passengers,” said Spohr. “We should also see sufficient availability of these tests in the fourth quarter.”

With the school start in German state Baden-Wuerttemberg, the summer travel season ends in Germany. At the end of the summer, Lufthansa took a positive interim balance of the test centres at German airports. Since the end of June, the partners have been jointly enabling passengers departing from or arriving at Frankfurt Airport (FRA), as well as those from the region, to have access to fast, reliable tests for the SARS CoV-2 virus. This first ‘walk-in’ coronavirus test centre in Germany serves as a blueprint for a successful test concept and helps passengers entering Germany from high-risk countries.

More than 150,000 passengers tested over the summer

In the summer of 2020, more than 150,000 passengers were tested at Frankfurt Airport using CENTOGENE's highly sensitive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test. On average, about one per cent of the samples were positive during the last six weeks. Over 97 per cent of the Covid-19 test results were digitally transmitted to passengers in August 2020 in less than 24 hours.

Passengers who had registered for the test in advance only had to wait approximately 20 minutes before being tested. Most of them came from Spain, followed by the US, Turkey and Croatia. In addition, almost 50,000 passengers were tested before departure, for example to travel to China or Dubai, where a negative test result is mandatory for entry. The general population from the region also used the test centre. Since mid-August, another test centre has also been in operation at Hamburg Airport.

Spohr said a breakthrough in the acceptance of rapid tests was ‘only weeks away’ and added that the cost of each test would only be between €5 and €7.

“Without testing, there will be no reopening of transatlantic in the short-term future,” he said. “I’m not saying this is easy. ‘Testing, testing, testing’ is our slogan for right now.”