LAX begins rapid coronavirus tests for travelers

Despite a stay-at-home order across much of California and a call from health officials to refrain from travel amid the worst coronavirus wave to date, many people are still flying to and from coming from Los Angeles International Airport.

In an effort to make travel as safe as possible, LAX on Thursday opened an on-site rapid coronavirus test site.

Justin Erbacci, general manager of Los Angeles World Airports, said the airport supports the health advisories in place. “But we know there are people who travel and there are people who have essential travel,” he said. “We want to have this place to help people who travel to travel in a healthier and safer way.

Airmen who pre-book an appointment at the newly built lab, located across from Terminal 6, will receive the results within three to five hours. The lab, located in a shipping container, processes around 250 to 300 rapid tests per day, and plans to scale up to 1,000 tests per day.

Additional testing sites can be found at Terminal 2 and Tom Bradley International Terminal, which will provide results within 24 hours.

The tests, called PCR tests, are administered with a nasal swab. Each costs $ 125 and the results are provided electronically. Appointments are strongly encouraged for all three sites, but appointments for rapid tests fill up particularly quickly, Erbacci said.

A trio of provisional testing sites opened at the airport in mid-November, providing results within 24 hours. About 14,000 tests were administered at these sites.

The airport plans to roll out rapid antigen testing in about a week, officials said.

While coronavirus testing is not a prerequisite for leaving LAX, some destinations – including Hawaii – require negative PCR testing before traveling. Erbacci said on-site testing at LAX was a convenient way to facilitate travel to these destinations.

Other airports – and some airlines – also test passengers. Tampa International Airport began offering testing to all arriving and departing passengers on a walk-in basis in October and announced Thursday that the program would be extended into the new year, providing for testing will continue for several months.

Airlines such as United Airlines, American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, and Alaska Airlines either offer test kits sent to a passenger’s home or rapid tests performed in or near airports.

Although local airports have seen a steady increase in the number of travelers determined to spend the Christmas holidays with family and friends, travel has not increased as much as authorities had predicted.

Air travel from Dec. 17-29 was about 30% of what it was during the same period last year, LAX spokesperson Heath Montgomery said. This is lower than the amount predicted by airport officials in November, when they estimated that the total number of passengers during this period would be around 50% of last year’s total.

Travel declined in the first two weeks of December, following an increase before Thanksgiving, Montgomery said. The numbers picked up later in the month, with December 23 marking the second busiest day of the year – behind the Friday before Thanksgiving. The pre-Christmas travel date saw just over 43,000 passengers at security checkpoints at LAX, or about 40% of airport traffic on the same day last year.

The latest wave of coronavirus and the new stay-at-home order, which was recently extended for southern California, “wiped out what it could have been,” Montgomery said of the number of travelers.