Reduction of quarantine days for air travelers for consideration of IATF — DTI’s Lopez

The proposal to reduce the quarantine period for incoming air passengers will be taken into consideration by the Inter-Agency Task Force Against COVID-19 (IATF), Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said Wednesday.

“As to the discussion on reducing the number of days for quarantine, yes, it is being taken up now at the, first at the technical level and for consideration of the IATF, probably this week’s meeting or next week,” Lopez told reporters at a virtual press briefing.

Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion earlier said that airlines are proposing to reduce the 10-day quarantine period for incoming travelers to seven days

Concepcion also warned that the country’s aviation sector is at risk of collapse if stringent travel requirements were not relaxed.

Lopez, for his part, said, “For government, the way we can help the [aviation] sector in general is to have some kind of reopening, easing the travel restrictions as many people get vaccinated.”

“I think, right now, under study is to lessen the number of quarantine days that a person will be put under quarantine, especially for the vaccinated people,” the Trade chief said.

The Cabinet official said bringing back air travel demand by easing mobility restrictions, especially since more people are getting vaccinated, will help the aviation sector to recover from the onslaught of the pandemic.

“Fixing the demand side of the equation is very important,” Lopez said.

Concepcion earlier said that airlines are also asking to allow increased mobility of vaccinated Filipinos to allow them to sustain the recovery of some of the billions of pesos in revenue lost since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020.

Among the rules that they hope can be done away with were the multiple requirements for traveling, especially for domestic destinations, and expensive testing as most destinations require an RT-PCR test, and the long quarantines for arriving passengers from international flights.

Philippine Airlines, in particular, proposed piloting a new protocol to reduce risk and cost to passengers of international flights.

Under the proposal, passengers will be tested 72 hours before departure and will undergo quarantine upon arrival, and take an RT-PCR test on the third day. If the result is negative, they can leave the quarantine facility on the fifth day and continue with a home quarantine.

The airlines also requested the IATF to consider placing North America on the list of green countries as this is the biggest market for local airlines.

Cebu Pacific, on the other hand, called on the IATF to release guidelines to allow fully vaccinated Filipinos to travel domestically to help start tourism and economic activities.

AirAsia, for its part, proposed the use of antigen testing if testing will still be required as it is more convenient and cheaper. — RSJ, GMA News