Airline industry launches Covid-19 Digital Travel Pass app

With covid-19 vaccination rates rising, the airline industry has a plan to help make air travel easier with the launch of a digital travel pass app expected to arrive as early as mid-April.

In a detailed announcement by Reuters, the International Air Transport Association provided an update on its Digital travel pass. IATA Vice President Kamil Alawadhi said the app is currently being tested and should be available on April 15th, first on iOS with an Android version coming “later”.

The aim of the app is to help streamline air travel by digitizing and centralizing covid test results and vaccinations, which is especially important as many airlines and countries currently require proof of a covid test. negative passed in one to three days before arriving in a new country.

IATA says its Travel Pass is designed to unify validation and authentication for “all national regulations regarding covid-19 passenger travel requirements ”, the application allowing passengers to create a digital passport, verify and store the results of their tests and vaccination cardsand provide a secure means of sharing these results with government and air transport authorities. And by working with test centers, labs may even be able to issue digital certificates directly to passengers before an upcoming trip.

However, even after the IATA app becomes available, it will be important for individual airlines to adopt the Travel Pass if this is the case.is going to be really effective. IATA governs the vast majority of global air travel with nearly 300 current members, including major US airlines such as American Airlines, Delta, and United.

Alawadhi told Reuters that “the application will only achieve its success when airlines, different countries and airports adopt it”, although probably not surprisingly, Alawadhi also added that “a a large number of airlines have requested to be on board. “

That said, at least for now, only 20 of IATA’s 295 member airlines have announced plans to test IATA’s new app. Currently, Barbados is one of the first countries in the world to accept digital documentation for covid testing at its border, and last week Virgin Atlantic announced it would test the IATA application for its route between London and Barbados from April 16.

By digitizing data on covid testing and vaccination, IATA hopes to speed up health and safety checkpoints for passengers. And as more and more people continue to get their shots and start thinking about traveling again, anything that makes travel easier is likely to be a very welcome upgrade. Unless you have covid, and then you better stay home.