The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has reportedly said the digital Covid travel pass should be ready “within weeks” as several airlines are conducting trials of the app that verifies the health status of passengers. While governments around the world gradually lifted restrictions on the entry of foreigners, many of them announced their own set of requirements that inbound travellers must fulfil to board a plane.
The IATA sees the digital travel pass, a mobile app developed by the association, as an essential tool for the reopening of international borders without having the risk of importing the infectious disease. Several airlines, including Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Air New Zealand, are conducting trials of IATA travel pass in an attempt to seamlessly manage the digital travel documentation of passengers.
"We are currently working with a number of airlines worldwide and learning from these pilots. And the plan is to go live in March," Vinoop Goel, IATA’s regional director of airports and external relations, told BBC. “So basically we expect to have a fully functional working system over the next few weeks.”
Here’s all you need to know about the IATA travel pass:
The travel pass is a standardised solution to validate and authenticate all country regulations regarding passenger travel requirements related to Covid-19.
{{/usCountry}}The travel pass is a standardised solution to validate and authenticate all country regulations regarding passenger travel requirements related to Covid-19.
{{/usCountry}}The global registry of health requirements will enable passengers to find accurate information on travel, testing and vaccine requirements for their journey.
The trial app includes a global registry of testing centres and labs at the departure and/or arrival location which can conduct Covid-19 tests in accordance with the type of test required for the journey.
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The app will enable passengers to create a ‘digital passport’, verify their test/vaccination meets the regulations, and share test or vaccination certificates with authorities to facilitate travel.
The travel pass communicates with governments, airlines, and test centres/vaccination providers to get verified information to those who need it.
The IATA travel pass will be free for passengers to download and use on their iOS as well as Android platforms.
According to IATA, the travel pass does store any data centrally and simply links entities that need verification with the test or vaccination data only when travellers authorise it.