Seeking a unified approach

A NEW framework designed to make international air travel simpler and easier to coordinate is being proposed by Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) in partnership with the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

The Harmonising Air Travel policy proposes to create a unified reporting mechanism for health crises using purpose-built digital communications tools, using a system that will facilitate universal compliance, such as a globally-recognised Digital Health certificate.

GACA and ICAO argue that the complex and piecemeal approach by countries toward entry requirements is having a significant adverse impact on global travel intention for 2022, with their plan to be formally presented at the ICAO General Assembly in hopes of receiving approval from Member States by Oct this year.

If agreed upon, travellers will have access to much clearer guidelines and requirements needed to get from one destination to another, using a deployed universal platform that will be able to integrate all existing international aviation and government-to-government health crises systems.

Further features of the unified approach will see countries able to relay key information to one another in real-time to avoid latency issues, as well as the creation of a standardised health index to gauge the “openness” of each country to travel.

The plan bears a striking similarity to the free Destination Tracker tool launched by the World Tourism Organisation and the International Air Transport Association in Apr 2021, which provides travellers with a snapshot of COVID protocols etc.