HOW WILL IATA’S TRAVEL PASS IMPACT THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY OF TOMORROW?

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) recently released its IATA Travel Pass, a global, standardized solution to validate and authenticate all country regulations relating to Covid-19 passenger travel requirements. HN spoke to Katherine Kaczynska, manager of corporate communications at IATA, to learn more about this new solution and how it is expected to impact the travel industry.

What can you tell us about the Covid-19 passport and the concept behind it?

IATA Travel Pass is a mobile application that helps travelers to store and manage their verified certificates for Covid-19 tests or Covid-19 vaccines. This will be important for governments that are likely to require either verified testing or vaccination proof as a condition of international travel during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The IATA Travel Pass will be more secure and efficient than current paper processes used to manage health requirements. This will be important given the potentially enormous scale of testing or vaccine verifications that will need to be securely managed.

How long would it be valid for?

The IATA Travel Pass App, the element of the IATA Travel Pass which enables passengers to create a digital version of their passport on their smartphone, could be valid until the expiry date on a passenger's paper passport or otherwise stated.

What are your expectations for 2021?

Performance factors in 2021 will show improvements on 2020, with the second half of the year expected to improve on a difficult first six months.

Most importantly, people have not lost their desire to travel. iata.org