Airlines Urge White House To Ease COVID International Travel Restrictions
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) - U.S. airlines called on the White House to stop requiring a negative COVID test for travelers entering the country from international destinations, arguing it will help to increase passengers almost two years into the pandemic.
"I want to come back, it's really exciting, I mean actually to visit the U.S. is really exciting," said Marlene Mbaya, a woman visiting the city from Paris. "It's the first time to be in San Francisco and I enjoy it a lot."
Airlines for America, a lobbying group for the industry, and other travel organizations signed a letter to the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. Their argument for removing the testing requirement for vaccinated passengers included a large enough percentage of the population already getting the virus. The letter also pointed out that there are not any variants of concern at the moment.
"Globally everything is very expensive. We live in the United States, I see everything is extremely expensive, the prices went up dramatically," said Mojtaba Zafari, an international traveler who lives in Northern California. "Same thing when I talk to my friends all around the world."
The letter also pointed out decisions by the European Union and the World Health Organization to move away from a standard testing requirement but instead changed the policy based on vaccination status and a risk-based approach.
"Foreign visitors have effectively gone down to zero in San Francisco so without them we've had a reasonable summer last year," said Taylor Safford, the president and CEO of Pier 39.
Staff at San Francisco International Airport shared with KPIX 5 on Thursday that the airport was able to recover about 50 percent of domestic passengers in 2021 compared to 2019, a difference of more than 20 million people. But international passengers were 3,335,838 for 2021, which is only 22 percent of the 15,240,135 recorded in 2019.
"In order to make the economics of operating a visitor destination like Pier 39 a success, those foreign visitors are critical to our success, critical," Safford told KPIX 5.
Pier 39 says one third of its visitors before the pandemic were international guests, the same fraction as its domestic customers and the number of people who visit from inside California. International visitors spend more money per capita though by a ratio of 4 to 1.
While the need for travelers to come back at levels seen before COVID, testing alone may not be what brings them back. Some say it's actually easier to meet the requirements now than it was last year.
"Back in August it was pretty bad because the requirement was just a PCR test," said Mbaya. "Maybe one day we just get rid of this COVID."
