Canada is one of the countries requiring certain arrivals such as from China and Hong Kong to provide negative Covid test results and three years into this whole thing, Air Canada as the country’s main flag carrier should have figured out by now how to accept said test certificates.
Yet, technology not being their strongest side, the airline is still unable to accept certain certificates including the official results that are issued by the public test centers in Hong Kong which are the most efficient way to get this done.
Receiving a PCT test in Hong Kong is extremely easy and cheap as long as you’re using one of the government sites to get this done.
I was staying in Kowloon at the Hyatt Regency and there is a testing site 10 minutes walk away in Kowloon Park where the Self Paid testing option is 150 HKD (US$20) which really can’t be beaten. Another option would have been to use the CUHK Medical Clinic next door or the CUHK Medical Center in Sha Tin and pay 1,100 HKD for the same service.
I took the test at 3:20pm and got the results at 1:20am via SMS text message. The result was then available to be downloaded online.
The actual document is longer and contains more test details, definitely all that is required for acceptance.
When checking in online with Air Canada it prompts you to upload the relevant information:
You can then upload your document:
After uploading you fill in all details manually as well. Then you submit the entire file.
Unfortunately, we’re talking about Air Canada here so this happens:
There is no problem with this certificate yet it’s still being rejected. I had the same problem in the past flying from Korea and Japan. There doesn’t seem to be any priority on the part of Air Canada to make improvements to this process.
I doubt this will add much complication to the airport check-in process since I have baggage anyway but it’s so unnecessary. Why not make it work properly for once?
Conclusion
Passengers who are flying Air Canada from a mandatory test country to Canada usually upload documentation before the flight during the online check-in process or you can show the documents at the airport.
Three years after this first became an issue and one year post-pandemic Air Canada still can’t figure out how to properly accept an official, government-issued certificate into their system. It’s despicable!