Travel tidbits from airports and airlines

Soon, maybe not very soon, but soon, you will go to an airport and board a plane.

In the meantime, here are some newsy tidbits from that world.

Alaska Airlines is staying active. And a bit fishy

You may be sitting around and not getting many frequent flyer miles from flying.

But Alaska Airlines has a fun campaign that will award you some bonus miles for staying active.

The airline is buddying up with fitness app Strava to give away 250,000 miles to Mileage Plan members as part of the Miles on the Ground Challenge.

Get the app, do 360 minutes physical activity by May 30, 2020, and you will qualify to enter a drawing to win up to 100,000 miles.

Alaska Airlines also did a nice pivot with the annual fly-in of the first Copper River salmon from Alaska to Seattle.

Instead of heading to area restaurants, part of the first planeload of copper river salmon became meals for health care workers. The rest was used for a salmon dinner fundraiser that generated enough money to buy 77,000 meals for people in the community.

COVID-19 testing at airports

There is a lot of chatter about doing thermal cameras and temperature checks at airport security checkpoints and boarding gates.

But that is not a foolproof method of determining if a passenger has a case of COVID-19.

So, several airports and airlines are going beyond that and requiring passengers to either have proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test result or take a test on the spot to avoid quarantine.

In mid-April, Dubai-based Emirates began requiring passengers departing Dubai International Airport to underdo rapid COVID-19 blood tests, with results in 10 minutes.

Testing at Vienna Airport

Anyone traveling to Austria right now is required to either have a recent medical certificate showing they are negative for COVID-19 or go into a 14-day quarantine.

For arriving passengers without a medical certificate but with a residence in Austria and a valid resident permit, Vienna International Airport (VIE) is offering the opportunity to get tested for COVID-19 on the spot.

The tests are not free. They cost EUR 190 (about $207), but the results come back in three to six hours and, if negative, allow the passenger to skip the quarantine.

All other arriving passengers without a health certificate are sent immediately to quarantine, according to the airport, and โ€œmust arrange for themselves to be tested by a laboratory at the quarantine location, which may involve longer waiting times.โ€

Iceland planning on the spot COVID-19 tests at KEF Airport

The government of Iceland expects to begin welcoming back international flight no later than June 15. And when it does, the plan is to give travelers the option of getting testing for COVID-19 on arrival at Keflavik Airport (KEF) to avoid a two-week quarantine.

Details are still being worked out on how that will play out.

Quito Airport cueing up it COVID-19 testing too

Quito International Airport (UIO) expects commercial flights to resume on June 1.

But it already has stations installed for rapid COVID-19 testing of passengers.

10 temporary testing stations are set up now and were first used on May 18 to test passengers on a charter Aeromexico flight from Mexico City carrying 120 repatriating passengers.

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