(HOWARD ALEXANDER / iNFOnews.ca)

Kelowna’s airport director says he’s tried multiple times to reach the federal government to discuss policies for travellers but has been met with little response.

YLW is calling on the government to review policies for COVID-19 testing as current ones are making it difficult for travellers. International travellers have to take another COVID-19 test when they arrive at the airport, despite already taking a test before the flight, said airport director Sam Samaddar.

“We’re dealing with a shortage of testing availability… and people aren’t able to get tested and yet for arriving international passengers, we’ve already asked them to be tested before they arrive in-country,” he said.  “It’s a waste of resources.”

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Some countries in Europe like Ireland and the United Kingdom have already eliminated pre-testing altogether, he said.

“Travelling has become so complicated,” he said.

Chief medical officers of Health for Air Canada, Toronto Pearson, and WestJet are calling on governments to shift PCR testing from airports to communities.

“As the government has ramped up testing at airports for international arrivals, we have seen frontline workers struggle to get PCR tests and lab processing capacity decrease significantly,” they said in a press release issued Jan. 17.

“Over 123,000 PCR tests were conducted at Canada's airports with an average positivity rate of 3 per cent. Meanwhile, the positivity rate in our communities is now approximately 30 per cent and could be higher due to the under-reporting of positivity from a lack of tests.”

The Kelowna airport has received little response from the federal government, and the government has been “reactive” instead of proactive, Samaddar said.

December 2021 was the busiest month of the year for the airport, with more passengers than the previous December. January is seeing a bit of a drop-off with flight cancellations, he said.

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