Covid-19: UK PM Johnson wants to make travel testing regime easy and cheap

Boris Johnson said that the focus lies on making the travel testing regime 'as flexible and affordable as possible.'

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday said he wanted a testing regime for international travel to be easy and cheap, hinting that rapid tests could be used after criticism from the airline industry that current requirements were onerous.

Britain's prime minister Boris Johnson arrives to give an update on the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic during a virtual press conference inside the new Downing Street Briefing Room in central London. (AFP)

The boss of easyJet Johan Lundgren has criticised some of the government's plans to restart travel, questioning the role of testing.

Asked about Lundgren's comments and asked if rapid lateral tests could replace PCR tests in the requirements for travellers, Johnson said: "I do think we want to make things as easy as we possibly can ... The boss of EasyJet is right to focus on this issue, we're going to see what we can do to make things as flexible and as affordable as possible."

"I do want to see international travel start up again. We have to be realistic... we can't do it immediately. But that doesn't mean that we've given up on May 17."