First, I want to start by stating clearly that I am not encouraging anyone to travel to Italy at this time that doesn’t feel personally comfortable with it. I am posting this purely for information for others who may be considering the same method of entry. I have received two doses of the Moderna vaccine and am following all national and local health guidelines while here.
I entered Italy as a tourist this morning using Delta’s Covid-tested flight from JFK-Milan. A few things weren’t clear about how it would work so I’ll outline how it went. First, if you’re not familiar with the Covid-tested flights on Delta, all passengers are required to take 3 Covid tests in order to enter Italy without having to quarantine. This is even for those passengers who have already been fully vaccinated. You organize your own PCR test, 72 hours before your flight to Italy departs, then take a rapid Antigen test at JFK, and a third rapid Antigen test when you land in Milan.
PCR test: this is just my experience, it may be different for you. My main options in my home town to get tested were CVS and Walgreens. I put the same info into both websites and CVS wanted $139 for the test while Walgreens was free. I, being cheap, chose Walgreens. They had lots of times available and I got my results back within about 30 hours after the swab was taken. It is not clear on the website how you have to present the PCR results at JFK, so I opted to print them out. Many other passengers were simply showing the agents their results on their phones.
JFK Antigen test: this was the messiest part. Delta tells you numerous times to show up at JFK 4.5 hours before your flight and to go to the Arrivals hall of Terminal 4 and follow the signs for Delta Covid-tested flights. There were no signs. The place where you go is probably obvious to others, it’s called “Xpress Check” but the only signage talked about PCR tests and having an appt, which was not what we were doing. After asking some people working there where to go, I found the line to stand in. If you arrive on time (4.5 hours early), don’t worry that the first 30 minutes of standing there the line never moves. They didn’t start setting up tables to process us until 4 hours before.
The next confusion was about the Passenger Locator Form. On Delta’s website it says you need to complete “additional forms” for the flight. When I clicked on the link, it took me to the Italian website which clearly stated that the forms were to be completed after check-in and before boarding. Delta made it very clear that we couldn’t check-in until after the Antigen test. Yet all the agents kept asking us if we had our PLF completed yet. It wasn’t an issue, but it created more chaos. Total time from starting to check passengers to arriving at my gate at JFK was 90 minutes.
The test results came quickly and there were more forms to fill out while we waited. The flight was easy (mostly empty) and we were asked during the flight to fill out another form for landing to give to the Italian police. The entering process at Malpensa was actually the easiest part.
We stood in line to give our last form to the police, then the regular immigration line, then collected any checked bags. The final Antigen test was the only strange part. You walked completely out of the controlled area of the airport to where you would meet family/friends, and then you had to walk all the way to the end of the terminal to where they were doing the final Antigen test, which officially released you from quarantine. I thought it was strange that they didn’t do it inside the controlled area, and after we got our results, no one was checking as we left the waiting area to make sure we did it.
The total time from walking off the plane to getting the final Covid test results was 45 minutes.
Sorry for such a long post, but in case other people are thinking about using one of these flights to come to Italy, it worked!!