Digital health pass for 'no quarantine' travel in final phase of development: IATA

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Monday, November 23 announced that it is in the final development phase of a digital health pass that will all the safe reopening of international borders. The IATA Travel Pass will help in better coordination between governments, airlines, laboratories, and travellers and will see to that the international borders are safe to reopen again for travel purposes without having had to use quarantine measures. 

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'Enable travel without quarantine measures' 

The association for airlines announced that it will bring the travel pass in the coming months, which will better the information flow infrastructure needed to the safe reopening of borders. The shutdown of borders has affected airline companies the most as many international carriers have already filed for bankruptcy due to losses incurred during the lockdown. The quarantine measures announced by several countries has been one of the primary reasons behind low foot-fall at airports. 

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"Today borders are double locked. Testing is the first key to enable international travel without quarantine measures. The second key is the global information infrastructure needed to securely manage, share, and verify test data matched with traveler identities in compliance with border control requirements. That’s the job of IATA Travel Pass," IATA said in a statement on Monday. 

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The IATA Travel Pass will enable passengers to find accurate information on travel, testing, and eventually vaccine requirements when a COVID-19 vaccine is available. The pass will help passengers in finding testing centres at departure locations that meet the requirements of their destination country.

It will also allow passengers to create a digital passport for contactless travelling. It will enable passengers to share their testing and other health reports with the airlines and is expected to improve the travel experience amid the current health crisis. 

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(Image Credit: AP)