Air Canada collaborates with Spartan Bioscience to explore rapid COVID-19 testing

Air Canada has announced it has engaged Spartan Bioscience, an Ottawa-based biotechnology leader in portable DNA testing technology, to assess how best to deploy Spartan’s portable COVID-19 testing technology in the aviation sector.

“Our strategy for managing COVID-19 has been to develop and apply multiple layers of biosafety measures for customers and employees. We believe the availability of a rapid, accurate, portable molecular test for COVID-19 will add yet another effective layer. We are excited by the potential and point of care use cases for the Spartan Cube, and look forward to working with the team in the weeks and months ahead,” said Samuel Elfassy, vice president of safety at Air Canada.

Air Canada has been at the forefront of the airline industry in responding to COVID-19, for example being among the first carriers globally to require face coverings onboard and the first airline in the Americas to take customers’ temperatures prior to boarding.

In May it introduced a comprehensive program, Air Canada CleanCare+, to apply biosafety measures at each stage of the journey.