TRAVELING AFTER COVID
Digital vaccine passports? Testing requirements? What the future of travel looks like,
Long lines at the Miami airport check-in. Flashing proof of your negative COVID test or your CDC vaccination card before boarding your international flight. Maybe you’ll show a virtual vaccine passport, like a QR code, instead.
This is a prediction of what experts expect travel will be like soon, possibly a year from now.
And while domestic travel will feel pre-COVID (though masks might still be a required), the forecast for international travel is a bit “chaotic.”
Passengers are expected to spend more than five hours at the airport per international trip in the near future, according to the International Air Transport Association that represents more than 200 airlines (about 82% of the world’s air traffic) including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines.
To avoid this scenario, a globally recognized, standardized and automatized digital certificate process for COVID-19 testing and vaccines will be needed, according to the association.
Here’s a breakdown of what to expect:
WILL PEOPLE NEED A VACCINE PASSPORT TO TRAVEL?
While you won’t need to show proof of vaccination to travel domestically (the Biden administration has said it will not mandate vaccines), you might need to for international travel.
Seven European countries, for example, including Germany and Greece, have started to issue digital vaccination certificates, with all 27 European countries slated to roll out certificates as of July 1. The certificate can be shown on a screen or printed out to verify that a person has been vaccinated against COVID, received a negative test or has recovered from the virus, according to the Washington Post.
The United Kingdom has already updated its National Health Service app to let fully vaccinated users prove their status while traveling abroad. China and Japan have also embraced the concept.
Several smartphone apps already let travelers submit and check if their COVID test results were accepted by their destination, but only with select carriers. The association, for example, has IATA Travel Pass.
Another app, CommonPass, which was created by a nonprofit, has gained traction with other carriers, including JetBlue and United, and is planning to let travelers upload their vaccine credentials by mid-June, according to The Associated Press.
And American Airlines, which has been using VeriFLY since last year to let passengers upload proof of their negative COVID test, recently began offering passengers the option to upload vaccine documentation, too. So far, vaccine documentation can be uploaded for travel to the Bahamas, El Salvador and Guatemala.
The airline also has VeriFLY lanes at 11 airports, including Miami International Airport, to make the check-in process faster.
WHAT DO TESTING AND VACCINE PROOF HAVE TO DO WITH LONG LINES?
Passengers are already spending up to three hours, double what it was in preCOVID times, to get through check-in, security, customs and baggage claims, said the association’s director general Willie Walsh in a May 26 briefing.
Walsh said the longest delays are happening at check-in and customs where COVID-19 test results or vaccination proofs are being checked mainly as paper documents.
And the association says it could get worse if a centralized, automated system to check COVID-19 documents is not created, with the average passenger spending more than five hours, possibly up to eight, at the airport per trip once 75% to 100% of pre-COVID traffic levels return. Walsh doesn’t believe it will get to that point, because if it does, “airports will not be able to function.”
“This highlights what we’ve been saying for some time — that we need a digital solution,” Walsh said. “We need governments and airlines to be able to process customers, almost as they did seamlessly prior to this crisis and enable customers to check in online to take the volume of activity away from the airport, or else we will have chaos on departure. And then critically, we will have chaos on arrival as people go through the immigration process if they’ve got to continue to prove — using paper — that they’ve completed their forms and have completed the right test.”
Fort-Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport says it’s considered to be one of the fastest-recovering U.S. airports in 2021 and is expecting to see 2.6 million passengers in June, just 14% down from pre-pandemic levels. In May, it saw an average of 323 daily departure flights (domestic and international), about 15% down from 2019, airport spokeswoman Arlene Satchell said. She said the airport predicts that the numbers will reach prepandemic travel levels by the end of the year.
Miami International Airport has already seen its highest numbers of traffic since the pandemic began, with an average of
110,000 passengers per day, just 10% down from pre-pandemic levels. May 23 was its first day since the pandemic of having a higher count of passengers (120,819) compared to the same day in 2019
(119,361). Then it had an even busier Memorial Day weekend.
“As vaccinations continue to increase globally and conditions keep improving, international travel will continue to rebound, and MIA should start seeing passenger growth again soon,” said airport spokesman Greg Chin. “The gap between our current passenger numbers and prepandemic levels continues to shrink each month.”
Every country has its own COVID rules for entering, including testing and quarantine procedures. Most countries require a negative COVID test for entry, and that is likely to be the case into 2022. Some will accept “vaccine passports” as an alternative to testing or won’t require you to quarantine.
That means people will need to factor tests and vaccinations into their travel plans, including when booking flights to come back to the U.S.
Some carriers, including American Airlines, JetBlue and United Airlines have reportedly partnered with testing providers for faster turnaround times, though the tests can get pricey.
Two COVID-19 test sites at MIA, one run by Communitel, the other by Nomi Health, have also seen a surge of customers since opening in May, particularly from passengers flying internationally. The sites are expected to stay at MIA for at least a year, Chin said. Depending on which type of test you get, costs could range from $79 to $229. The Nomi Health COVID-19 testing site at FLL is also expected to remain open through the end of 2021 and has administered more than 32,000 tests since it opened in December.
There’s a free online tool, UNWTO-IATA Destination Tracker, that can help travelers planning to fly internationally learn what the COVID requirements and measures are at their destination. Your airline should also tell you whether proof of a negative test or vaccine is required.
WHAT ABOUT CRUISES?
Royal Caribbean Groups Celebrity Edge is set to depart from Fort Lauderdale on June 26, making it the first passenger cruise from the U.S. to set sail since the industry was shutdown last year. By 2022, other cruises should be sailing, too.
But things will look different. For starters, several cruise companies now have a vaccine requirement for crews and customers, including Norwegian Cruise Line.
However, it’s complicated in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has said cruise companies will not be exempt from a recently passed Florida law that goes into effect July 1 and prohibits companies from requiring customers to show proof of vaccination.
Businesses that break the law can be fined $5,000 each time they ask a customer for vaccination proof.
So far, Royal Caribbean International has changed its mind on requiring vaccination proof, in an apparent submission to the governor, and is now recommending passengers get the vaccine instead. Its sister brand Celebrity Cruises is still requiring passengers 16 and older to be vaccinated for cruises restarting from Port Everglades on June 26.
The CDC recommends all cruise passengers to be vaccinated but doesn’t require it. Cruise companies can either meet the CDC’s vaccination threshold (98% crew and 95% passengers) or perform test cruises to ensure COVID protocols are working.
Florida is also embroiled in a lawsuit against the federal government and is arguing that the CDC’s conditional sail order has unfairly targeted the cruise industry and should be thrown out. The federal government has traditionally regulated cruise lines and legal experts say the lawsuit has little chance of proceeding.
In the meantime, maybe you should take a road trip. It sounds easier.