Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport gets ‘state-of-the-art’ Covid testing facility

The onsite laboratory offers testing with a three-hour turnaround

An aerial shot of the new testing facility at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport (Test Assurance Group Ltd/Salutaris People)

A new “state-of-the-art” Covid testing laboratory has opened at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport.

The onsite laboratory offers passengers a “Fit to Fly” testing service with a three-hour turnaround, in addition to standard 24-hour testing.

It aims to eradicate “unclear” and lost test results and has been designed to perform 500 tests per day, but can be increased to handle 1,000 tests or more.

In a statement, airport commercial director Lucy O’Shaughnessy said: “Liverpool John Lennon airport can now provide our airline passengers with a state-of-the-art Covid testing facility on site as we start to resume our flight schedules and have more passengers flying again.

“Working in partnership with Test Assurance Group/Salutaris People and Source BioScience enables us to offer a convenient and efficient PCR testing service operated by trusted healthcare providers.”

The news comes as bosses from Gatwick and Heathrow Airports call on the government to scrap testing for double vaccinated travellers.

Stewart Wingate, the CEO of Gatwick Airport, last week described existing travel restrictions as “out of step”.

The aviation chief cited new figures released from Airports Council International (ACI) Europe which reveal that travel bookings in the UK are around 30 per cent of pre-Covid levels, compared with around 60 per cent in Europe.

“With vaccination rates across Europe comparable, if not better than the UK's, the time has come for testing to be removed altogether for travellers who have been double jabbed,” he said in a statement.

“Our continued travel restrictions are out of step with much of Europe and continue to have a real impact on jobs and livelihoods, business and growth opportunities while also keeping friends and family apart.”

Elsewhere, officials at Heathrow Airport have also called for all testing for double jabbed travellers to be abandoned as it struggles to recover from business lost to the Covid-19 pandemic.

New figures announced by the transport hub reveal that it has gone from being the busiest airport in Europe in 2019 to number 10 in the rankings, with competitors Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam’s Schiphol recovering at a much faster pace.

In a statement, it describes the current traffic light system as an “outlier” that is “delaying the government’s Global Britain ambitions, handing rivals a competitive advantage while the UK loses market share.”

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: 'The government has the tools to protect the UK's international competitiveness which will boost the economic recovery and achieve its 'global Britain' ambitions.

“If ministers fail to take this opportunity to streamline the travel rules then the UK will fall further behind as trade and tourists will increasingly bypass the UK.”