In travel news for April 26, 2022 we have an COVID entry requirement change by Portugal, good news from United Airlines, and an update on the per-departure covid testing requirement for those entering the U.S. by air. Today in Travel.

More and more countries are dropping COVID travel restrictions, Portugal however is doing the opposite. Portuguese authorities have brought back the requirement that travelers must provide proof of vaccination, proof of negative covid test, or proof of recovery to gain entry. The test must be taken 72 hours prior for a PCR test, and 48 hours prior for a rapid antigen test.

United is bucking a recent trend, many airlines have been reducing routes and putting airplanes back into storage due to a combination of pilot shortages and high fuel prices. United is actually expanding routes. For the summer travel season United said today that it will be expanding transatlantic capacity by about 25% more than they had during 2019. This is the single larges transatlantic increase in the airlines history. United had already bet big on European travel, having scheduled 15% more capcity than Delta and 36% more capacity than American.

On April 18 a U.S. Federal Court Judge struck down the federal mask mandate for public transportation, which included air travel. Before this ruling the CDC had extended the mandate till May 2. Those of us in the travel business have been hoping that when the CDC were to relax the travel mask mandate that we would also get a timeframe for when the testing requirement for returning to the united states would be phased out. As it currently stands, everyone flying into the U.S., regardless of vaccination status, has to provide a negative COVID test taken within 1 day. While we still don’t have a timeframe for removal, we do have some encouraging news. It’s being reported that the Delta Airlines CEO recently said that “Hopefully that get’s rolled back in the next few weeks, we are hearing good things from Washington”. “That” being the testing requirement. This was later confirmed with Delta’s Chief Legal Officer who said “We are getting a strong indication that pre-departure testing will be phased out in the near future, which is quite encouraging”. We will continue to update you as new information becomes available.

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