Rapid & traditional C-19 testing now available to SLC airport passengers

XpreSpa Group, a New York City-based health and wellness company, has contracted with the Salt Lake City International Airport to open a COVID-19 testing site in Concourse A. The facility is in a former XpresSpa location that offered traditional spa treatments and is equipped with four testing rooms. The company said it expects to be able to provide more than 300 test per day.

“It was a significant business pivot for us coming out of spa and wellness treatments,” said Scott Milford, the chief operating officer for XpresSpa Group. “We provide two types of testing at the Salt Lake City location — we do polymerase chain reaction test, or PCR, that’s kind of the gold standard of COVID testing where they do a deep nasopharyngeal. Once they’re taken, the samples get sent out to a lab for processing and the results back usually within two to four days, depending on volume,” he said. “We also do a rapid nasal swab test, which is another nasopharyngeal swab. That test is actually put into a machine (on location) where it is molecularly amplified and they can give you a result within about 15 minutes.”

The rapid test retails for $200 and is not covered by health insurance, Milford said, while the PCR test costs $75 and is covered by most insurance plans, he said. These services are available to all airline passengers as well as all airport employees, including airline employees, contractors and workers, concessionaires and their employees, TSA officers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, the company said in a news release.

XpresSpa operates COVID-19 testing sites in seven locations in the U.S.: Denver, Phoenix and Salt Lake City in the West, along with two locations at Boston Logan International Airport as well as Newark, New Jersey, and its original testing facility at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.