The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects to launch its own digital travel card in the coming weeks. She informed about it BBC stations.
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The “Covid Passport” will operate in the form of the Travel Pass smartphone application, which will verify whether individual passengers have undergone testing or vaccination against covid-19. They shall also confirm that the test or vaccination has been carried out under the supervision of a certified medical authority.
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IATA considers the introduction of a digital covid passport to be a crucial step in reopening air traffic. Strict restrictions still apply in many countries, including the need to spend more than a week in quarantine upon arrival.
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“Trust is key. Passengers must be sure that the tests they have undergone are reliable and allow them to enter the destination country, “said Vinoop Goel, IATA’s Director of Airports and External Relations. “National governments must also be sure that the tests performed meet their conditions,” he added.
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The Travel Pass application will run on a modular principle – it will be able to work with other digital solutions that are being implemented in various parts of the world for the resumption of air traffic. It will be available on iOS and Android operating systems, and will be free for passengers.
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Singapore Airlines was the first to launch a trial operation last December. Etihad, Emirates, Qatar Airways and Air New Zealand gradually joined it. IATA says it is now negotiating application support with most airlines in the Asia-Pacific region.
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“We are currently working with a number of global airlines. The plan is to start full operation of the application in March, “said Goel. “In principle, we expect to have a fully functional system over the next few weeks,” he added.
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Digital hope
Currently, the most widespread material equivalent of the planned application is the so-called yellow vaccination passport issued by the World Health Organization. It is usually used to document vaccination against yellow fever, but during the current pandemic, vaccination against covid-19 has also begun to be recorded.
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However, the risk of forgery is too high for paper documents, according to IATA. Europol confirms this with the recent revelations of a group of fraudsters selling negative test results to passengers at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
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Police in Malaysia have also reportedly detained six men on suspicion of falsifying test results for covid-19.
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However, some world governments insist on paper documentation, which is proving to be a significant hurdle for IATA.
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“For example, South Korea so far requires paper certificates with a negative test result, so we are working with the local government to adopt digital certificates,” said Vinoop Goel.
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However, despite the introduction of the Travel Pass application, the aviation industry expects its recovery to take a long time. The pandemic hit the sector hard, with IATA calculations showing a drop in demand for its services by 70 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year.
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“The recovery will take too long, at least 12 to 24 months. It depends on the worldwide availability of vaccines, “said Conrad Clifford, IATA’s Regional Vice President for Asia-Pacific. “So we see a combination of testing and vaccination as a long-term solution for reopening borders,” he added.
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