washington the biden administration will drop predeparture covid19 international air testing requirements effective sunday at 1201 am after heavy lobbying from airlines and the travel industry a senior administration official told reutersthe biden administration will announce on friday that the centers for disease control and prevention cdc will no longer require predeparture covid19 testing for travelers coming to the united states after it determined based on the science and data that this requirement is no longer necessary cdc will do a reassessment of this decision in 90 days the official saidsince december the cdc has required travelers to test negative within one day before flights to the united states but does not require testing for land border crossingsthe official said if there is a need to reinstate a predeparture testing requirement including due to a new concerning variant cdc will not hesitate to actamerican airlines chief executive robert isom said last week at a conference that the testing requirements were nonsensical and were depressing leisure and business travelairlines have said that many americans are not traveling internationally because of concerns they will test positive and be stranded abroadisom said 75 of countries american serves do not have testing requirementswere really frustrated and this is something that is damaging not only us travel but it just doesnt make sense isom said last weekin december the cdc tightened requirements for international air travelers to get a negative test within one day rather than three days of coming to the united states