Coronavirus: Airlines test health passes for travellers

A digital travel pass developed by airlines is being billed as the ‘global solution’ needed to reopen international borders.

Etihad Airways says the biggest challenge for the resumption of international travel is uniformity among countries about new health standards for passengers.

Desperate to resume international travel, airlines are pushing ahead with the rollout of a digital travel pass independent of ­governments.

Intended as verification of a traveller’s health status, the pass is being adopted by multiple airlines under the direction of the International Air Transport Association.

Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines are among those conducting trials in the Asia Pacific region, with passengers on Auckland-Sydney flights to be among the first to use the digital passes in April.

It follows on from the worst year in history for air travel demand worldwide, with a 75.6 per cent drop in international passenger bookings at a cost of about $120bn to airlines.

IATA Asia Pacific regional director Vinoop Goel said he was hopeful the travel pass trials would lead to international border reopenings by showing flights could be undertaken safely.

“We hope the IATA travel pass will give governments confidence that borders can be opened using tools like this, which will ensure that anyone coming in has the right level of vaccination or testing,” he said.

“In our view, this can especially help countries that have adopted a more conservative attitude up to now, such as Australia and New Zealand.”

The pass is intended as a smartphone app carrying verified certification of a passenger’s vaccination or negative COVID test, depending on the requirements of the destination country.

The information is incorporated into airlines’ own apps, and able to be shared with border force and Customs as needed to allow as streamlined travel as possible.

IATA regional vice-president Conrad Clifford said discussions were being held with governments across the world about the need for a global solution. “I’m confident governments in the ­region will adopt a mechanism to ensure the verification of people’s COVID health,” he said.

“As to whether that will be the IATA solution, that’s not certain yet. Obviously we’re trying to create a global solution here so we don’t have many different versions of the same tool.”

Qantas declined to comment on the IATA travel pass product but is understood to be looking at a range of products for the resumption of international travel.

Etihad Airways was among those trialling the IATA travel pass, but executive director of operations strategy Chris Youlten said the pass alone was not the ­answer.

“The problem is connecting all the various medical authorities in the world to validate a health certificate for travel,” he said. “What we all want as an industry and what will help facilitate confidence in travel will be one solution for everybody, or a gaggle of solutions that do the same thing.”

He said it was “astonishing” that after 12 months of the pandemic, there was still so little uniformity and alignment worldwide on border restrictions.

“The sheer amount of evidential data that must’ve been collected by now, we would’ve expected a much more informed and aligned set of views.

“I don’t think that expectation is limited to the aviation ­industry.”

Although Qantas was selling seats on international flights from July onwards, it remained to be seen when the federal government would lift the ban on overseas travel.

Mr Youlten said once new health requirements were adopted throughout the industry, he was confident demand would return.

“It’s that sense of ‘someone’s looking after me’,” he said.