Delta Air Lines will offer COVID-tested flights from New York's JFK Airport to Rome and Milan, Italy starting next month, the airline announced on Wednesday.
The new flights, launching April 1 and April 2, 2021, respectively, will allow eligible travelers to avoid Italy's mandatory 14-day quarantine on arrival. The flights are not for leisure travelers but available to individuals permitted to travel to Italy for essential reasons, such as for certain specified work, health and education reasons.
To fly on Delta's COVID-tested flights from New York to Milan (Malpensa) and Rome (Fiumicino), passengers need to test negative for COVID-19 on at least three separate occasions, including a PCR test taken up to 72 hours before departure, a rapid antigen test administered at the airport in New York and another rapid test on arrival in Italy.
"A year after air travel stalled to levels not seen in living memory, these COVID-tested, quarantine-free flights provide a real boost to the aviation industry," Delta's Alain Bellemare, E.V.P and President - International, said in a statement. "We are starting to see more global vaccination programs but until they become more widespread, corridor flights like this can help keep our customers and crew safer when they fly."
The new flights between New York and Milan will operate four times a week in April before moving to a daily operation beginning May 2. Meanwhile, flights from New York to Rome will initially operate three times a week before increasing to four times a week in May and eventually daily in June.
"The new COVID-tested flights operated by Delta to Milan-Malpensa are an important and tangible step towards making travel safer and easier for passengers during the pandemic. Milan to New York is a key intercontinental route for our market," said Armando Brunini, CEO of SEA Milan Airports, in a statement accompanying Wednesday's announcement. "We hope that this will be the first of many other COVID-tested and quarantine-free flights supporting the beginning of the recovery whilst we wait for vaccination campaigns to gain momentum."
Aeroporti di Roma CEO Marco Troncone called the new COVID-tested routes "a very significant milestone in the process leading to the recovery of the aviation industry and to reactivate air traffic with maximum safety."
Delta first launched COVID-tested flights this past December, working with transatlantic partner KLM Royal Dutch Airlines to offer quarantine-free flights from Atlanta to Amsterdam.
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