In order to provide a safe travel environment for all passengers, Amtrak is now requiring that all travelers fill out a short pre-trip check within 24 hours of departure acknowledging that they don’t have any COVID-19 symptoms and that they’ll agree to wear a mask when traveling on Amtrak. According to Amtrak, an email is sent to the primary email address in the reservation within 24 hours of departure. If there is no email in the reservation, the traveler is contacted by the phone number in the reservation. If the traveler does not fill out the form before boarding, the conductor on board may ask them to complete it when the tickets are being collected. The pre-trip check can be found at Amtrak.com/covidcheckeml and in the Amtrak mobile app; it can also be filled out by a contact center or station agent.

The US Travel Association (USTA) has called on governments and business leaders to establish “consistent” standards for health and safety protocols so that business travel and professionally managed events can restart more rapidly, reports Travel Pulse. USTA CEO Roger Dow said the association has launched a “Let’s Meet There” campaign, whose objective is to bring back corporate events safely. He said there is now a “patchwork” of protocols from city to city and state to state with outdated restrictions in some places, and the association is urging the adoption of federal guidance that is clear and consistent—and that recognizes that health and safety measures can be more readily implemented at professionally managed events than at other forms of large gatherings.

The UK government has announced that it will begin to allow fully vaccinated travelers from the United States and other countries on the UK's "amber list" to avoid quarantine, reports Business Travel News. Additional measures will be introduced in phases beginning "later in the summer," according to the UK government, and will include removing the guidance that UK residents should not travel to amber countries. The government also said it would offer further details next month including how the rules will apply to those unable to be vaccinated. Transport secretary Grant Shapps said: "We're moving forward with efforts to safely reopen international travel this summer, and thanks to the success of our vaccination program, we're now able to consider removing the quarantine period for fully vaccinated UK arrivals from amber countries – showing a real sign of progress [...] It's right that we continue with this cautious approach, to protect public health and the vaccine rollout as our top priority, while ensuring that our route out of the international travel restrictions is sustainable."

As international travel restrictions continue to loosen and more countries reopen travel to Americans, Delta Air Lines has announced that it has added a new rapid at-home COVID-19 testing option via a partnership with home healthcare technology provider Azova. The in-home rapid antigen tests are single-packaged and can be shipped directly to a home address or picked up locally. Test results are available within minutes and can be synced directly to travelers' smartphones. “Even as the US achieves widespread immunity through vaccinations, many international countries lag behind the US in vaccination rates. Testing and proof of a negative test result within 72 hours of travel remain core components for entry to many international destinations as well as to return to the US during the global pandemic,” said Henry Ting – SVP & Chief Health Officer. “These new purchase and pack COVID-19 tests offer a convenient option to provide proof of a negative test result and enable a seamless experience for our customers.” The carrier also stated that additional in-home PCR testing options from other third-party testing providers continue to be available as well.

US airports are beginning to experiment with virtual queuing technologies at TSA security checkpoints, with trials currently underway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Boston's Logan International Airport (BOS), reports Travel Weekly. Airports, and the vendors partnering with them on the trials, say the deployments are geared toward making the airport experience less stressful for flyers, while reducing crowding as COVID-19 continues to be a concern. Travelers who choose to use virtual queuing scan a QR code with their phones at screens located near the airport entrance. Users are then taken to a web interface, where they make a reservation for the security line and are told how long it will be before they can present themselves at the line entrance. Subsequently, a countdown within the browser session will enable travelers to see their remaining wait time, and they will be notified when it's their turn to enter the line. At the line's entrance, airport staff scan the QR code on the flyer's phone to verify the reservation. Travelers have an approximate 15-minute window to honor their reservation. Thus far, the virtual queuing trials are not integrated with TSA PreCheck, meaning all users must remove their shoes and go through the full screening process.