Frankfurt (dpa) – Lufthansa is to start trialling rapid coronavirus tests on some of its domestic flights in the hope of boosting air travel, the German airline said from Frankfurt on Friday.
The trials are to be conducted from Thursday on some of the airline’s flights between Munich and Hamburg.
All passengers on the flight will be subjected free of charge to an antigen rapid test that provides a result within an hour. They can also submit a negative PCR test less than 48 hours old or transfer to another flight if they do not wish to be tested.
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr said the airline had purchased 250,000 antigen tests for the trial, in the hope of restarting services on other routes, in particular its lucrative long-haul services.
“Successful testing could be the key to reviving international air travel,” executive board member Christina Foerster said.
The rapid tests are currently already being trialled on Lufthansa Group’s subsidiary Austrian between Berlin and Vienna.
Antigen tests yield quicker – although less reliable – results than do polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests that amplify small amounts of DNA.
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