People are waiting for passengers at one of the international arrivals halls at London Heathrow Airport in west London on February 14, 2021
JUSTIN TALLIS | AFP | Getty Images
A new application, which will be launched in a few weeks, could mark the first step in resuming international travel without quarantine.
The International Air Travel Association (IATA) travel app will allow governments and airlines to digitally collect, access and share information on the status of the Covid-19 test and the vaccination of individual passengers.
The industry, of which 290 airlines are members, said the instrument would bring greater “efficiency” to medical records, while accelerating the recovery of the affected travel sector.
“It’s really about digitizing an existing process,” Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president for freight and airport security, told CNBC on Wednesday.
If we do manual processing, we will reach a total stop when we start to see a restart.
Nick Careen
senior vice president (APCS), IATA
“This is the way to go, because if we do manual processing, we will reach a lasting stop when we start to see a restart,” he said.
Singapore Airlines will be the first carrier to fly the instrument on an end-to-end London Heathrow route. Thirty more airlines, including Air New Zealand, as well as Emirates and Etihad in the United Arab Emirates, are due to conduct studies by March and April.
IATA is not alone in developing so-called digital health passports for the resumption of cross-border travel. International agencies, governments and technology companies are also involved. But Careen said he hopes the app will set a “minimum set of requirements” to allow for greater interoperability.
“Eventually you will see more people in this space,” he said, “but we set the baseline in terms of the standard that needs to be.”
With the new application and the continuous launch of vaccines, the global association of airlines estimates that travel could reach around 50% of 2019 levels by the end of this year.
Analysts had previously expected higher travel growth in early 2021, but the continued spread of the virus and the emergence of new strains have pushed those expectations back.
“This is the current economic forecast,” Careen said. “There are a lot of variables that play into that.”