Coming in January, a health e-pass to help boost global air travel – ET HealthWorld

NEW DELHI: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is expected to launch early next year a trial of the IATA Travel Pass, a digital health certificate, to facilitate safe restart of international air travel after the pandemic.

The IATA Travel Pass, on the lines of the Yellow Fever inoculation certification which is mandatory for passengers travelling to Africa, is expected to be launched in January, industry sources told TOI.

The Travel Pass is expected to serve as a central and standardised resource for information about all coronavirus-related travel requirements and restrictions and will also contain information about how to conduct and carry test results to show to airlines and border officers around the world.

Speaking to TOI, honorary general secretary of the Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH), Subhash Goyal, said, “The Travel Pass will be a uniform health certificate that is accepted across governments, airlines, accredited laboratories and travellers and will ease international travel.”

IATA said the Travel Pass is a necessary prerequisite to reopen borders without quarantine and that governments need to be confident that they are mitigating the risks of importing the virus before they restart aviation. “This means having accurate information on passengers’ Covid-19 health status,” IATA said.

Separately, the Indian tourism and travel industry has petitioned the civil aviation ministry to restart scheduled flights to and from countries with which India has established air bubbles. “Along with this, FAITH has also asked the governments to issue e-visas for countries with which air bubbles have been established, and replace the 14-day quarantine for international passengers with a mandatory coronavirus test 96 hours prior to undertaking travel,” Goyal said.

Travel industry bodies in India have also sought the government’s intervention in setting up a corpus for bailing out airlines that have gone into the red and have been unable to repay travellers for unutilised tickets.

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