The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Monday started the trial of a travel pass designed for the pandemic era, reported Asia Times.
The IATA initiated a two-week pilot trial of the digital travel pass on Singapore Airlines' Singapore-London route.
The app, developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), will store information on passengers' health, including whether they have had virus tests or vaccines, to streamline travel as borders reopen.
Singapore's flag carrier said it would offer travellers heading from the city-state to London between March 15 and 28 the chance to participate in the pilot if they have a phone operating on the iOS system.
"Our partnership with Singapore Airlines for the first full deployment of the IATA Travel Pass will help get the world flying again," said Nick Careen from the industry body, AFP reported.
The initiative is overdue, for perhaps no global sector has been as hard hit by COVID-19 as air travel.
Last year, international passenger demand was 75.6 per cent below 2019 levels. Asia-Pacific airlines' full-year traffic plunged 80.3 per cent in 2020 compared with 2019, the deepest decline for any region, reported Asia Times.
To re-open borders without quarantine and restart aviation and 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.
Informing passengers on what tests, vaccines and other measures they require prior to travelling, details on where they can get tested and give 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.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
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