Passengers traveling to Hong Kong from Britain's Heathrow Airport must have a one-half-hour to an hour coronavirus test before flying, The Times newspaper reported Tuesday.
The "Rapid" tests will start Tuesday at Heathrow in London. They will allow travelers to enter countries where a negative COVID-19 test result is required to avoid a lengthy quarantine, the newspaper said.
However, they are not free. Passengers have to book the tests ahead of flights and they cost 80 British pounds ($103) each.
A growing number of countries have classified the UK as being "at risk" - meaning travelers from the UK face more restrictions, the BBC reported.
Authorities in Hong Kong now require people to show they have a negative test result - taken within 72 hours of a flight from London, the broadcaster said Tuesday.
Aviation-services company Collinson and Swissport has set up rapid-testing facilities for outbound passengers at Heathrow, the Times report said.
Collinson's chief executive David Evans told the BBC passengers would only have to turn up at the airport an hour earlier and said testing would help give people confidence to travel because flights would be "COVID-secure...It starts to make travel easier again," he said.
Airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Cathay Pacific are asking passengers to take the tests.
"Many other countries are already using testing to keep their borders safe while restarting trade and travel," John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of Heathrow, told the FT. "These facilities will make it easier for passengers going to those countries to get a test and have the potential to provide a service for arriving passengers."
Air passenger numbers have fallen since the beginning of the year as pandemic restrictions have grounded flights around the world.
British Airways' chief executive Sean Doyle said: "There is a risk that as an industry we will not see beyond this crisis if we do not first address the issue of how we get people flying again. Even if the quarantine period is reduced to seven days, people won't travel here and the UK will get left behind," he said according to the FT.
Meanwhile, a new digital "health passport" is to be piloted by a small number of passengers flying from the UK to the U.S. for the first time this week under plans for a global framework for COVID-safe air travel, the Guardian reported.
The CommonPass system, backed by the World Economic Forum, is designed to create a common international standard for passengers to demonstrate they do not have coronavirus, the report said.
However, critics say there are concerns over the sensitivity and specificity of the tests in some countries as people start to worry about the monitoring of people's movements.
