After suffering massive setbacks at the hands of coronavirus pandemic inflicted lockdowns, the global airline industry is now looking towards an app that could open up quarantine free travel.
The IATA Travel Pass, a digital platform for passengers build by IATA –International Air Transport Association, a trade association consisting of 290 airlines representing 117 countries. The app which stores and manages passenger certificates for COVI-19 tests and vaccines is to be launch next month.
“To re-open borders without quarantine and restart aviation governments need to be confident that they are effectively mitigating the risk of importing COVID-19. This means having accurate information on passengers’ COVID-19 health status,” states IATA on its website.
IATA added that informing passengers on what tests, vaccines and other measures they require prior to travel, details on where they can get tested and giving them the ability to share their tests and vaccination results in a verifiable, safe and privacy-protecting manner is the key to giving governments the confidence to open borders.
IATA has called the “a global and standardized solution to validate and authenticate all country regulations regarding COVID-19 passenger travel requirements.”
The IATA Travel Pass operates using a four step process:
Firstly, there is a registry of health requirements, which allows passengers to find information on travel, testing and vaccine requirements for their journey.
Secondly, the passengers can check the registry of testing and vaccination centers lab, which allows passengers to find testing centers and labs at their departure and arrival location that can conduct COVID-19 tests in accordance with the type of test required for their journey.
In the third step the authorized labs and test centers can securely send test results or vaccination certificates to passengers.
And lastly, the app allows passengers to create a ‘digital passport’, can verify their test/vaccination meets the regulations and shares test or vaccination certificates with authorities to facilitate travel.