How the airline industry is preparing for a future of safe air travel

SA continues to roll out its Covid-19 vaccine programme and aims to vaccinate 67% of the population by the end of 2021 — joining an increasing number of countries that are vaccinating their citizens.

Though the rollout of vaccinations is the only way for the world to return to normal life, it also has the potential to create a nightmare for the aviation industry, which must now either impose mandatory vaccination policies for passengers as a prerequisite for air travel, or introduce strict Covid-19 protocols that unvaccinated passengers need to adhere to.

This requirement threatens to continue affecting the aviation industry negatively if efficient, non-paper-based processes are not adopted to manage increasing passenger volumes at airports.

Vaccinating the world will take a lot of time, especially considering the waiting period until the vaccines have a meaningful effect on the global population. Until then, all relevant stakeholders, including regulatory bodies, governments and countries that have reopened their borders, need to work closely with the airline industry to ensure they mitigate the risk of importing Covid-19.

To do this, the aviation industry, especially the airlines, need to obtain accurate information on passengers’ Covid-19 health status and information on whether they have been tested or vaccinated before the journey. This will allow borders to remain open without the need for passengers to quarantine, and ensure the aviation industry can confidently continue operating.

The International Air Transport Association (Iata) highlights the critical need for digital solutions to reopen borders without quarantine, saying that without digitalising document-checking processes the average airport processing time could increase to eight hours if airport traffic returns to 2019 levels.

Cathay Pacific has been exploring numerous ways to make travel easier and more accessible. The airline strongly supports the direction the aviation industry is taking and is optimistic of the role digital travel passes will play for the future of travel, thus helping to facilitate the safe, progressive return of international travel.

We completed two trials last year with The Commons Project and the Airport Authority of Hong Kong, and recently conducted an addition of two live flight trials involving volunteer customers travelling between Hong Kong and Singapore. In addition to its work with CommonPass, Cathay Pacific is also a member of the Iata Travel Pass User Group.

The airline adopted the digital health pass CommonPass, making it the first airline to complete a trial with it involving both testing and vaccination records on an end-to-end, round-trip journey. Such digital health passes, which give details of Covid-19 testing as well as vaccination records, enable passengers to fly with convenience and confidence and pave the way for hassle-free and safer international air travel.

The volunteer passengers used their personal vaccination information and/or pre-departure Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test records to create digital health passes using the CommonPass app. The app interpreted and validated their records against the travel rules for the customers’ itineraries and produced a digital health pass that showed their eligibility to travel.

Vaccination records have become critical to safely reopen international travel. As the world adapts to the new normal, digital health passes will in time replace the need for multiple paper-based records when travelling — providing a seamless experience for international travellers in a complex world of border entry requirements and health certifications.

Most importantly, the use of digital health passes can significantly alleviate travel uncertainties while providing greater reassurance and confidence to the world. 

• Yedery is regional head of marketing & sales: South Asia, Middle East and Africa, for Cathay Pacific.