What is IATA’s travel pass, how is it helpful?

Amid the ongoing travel restriction and guidelines to follow while travelling to a place, budget carrier SpiceJet is all set to start trials of IATA’s travel from pass next week onwards.

This means that starting August 23, passengers on SpiceJet’s Mumbai-Male flights would be able to use IATA’s travel pass to show their COVID-19 vaccination status.

What is IATA’s travel pass?

IATA’s travel pass will be a mobile app that will help passengers manage their travel in line with government requirements for COVID-19 tests or vaccines. The IATA Travel Pass will also enable authorised labs and test centres to securely send test results or vaccination certificates to passengers.

What is the need for IATA service?

As international travel restarts in the aftermath of novel coronavirus, several jurisdictions are insisting on vaccination certificates, COVID-19 RT-PCR and other tests and health documents.

Digital passports such as the IATA travel pass have been developed to provide governments with the means to verify the authenticity of tests or vaccinations, airlines with the ability to provide accurate information to their passengers on test requirements.

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It also helps to verify passenger if he/she meets the requirements for travel and travellers with accurate information on test requirements, where they can get tested, and the means to securely convey their travel health credentials to airlines and border authorities.

Which are the other airlines that have onboarded to the IATA travel pass programme?

Airlines such as IndiGo SpiceJet and global airlines such as Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad, British Airways, Air France, Virgin Atlantic, Swiss Air and Thai Air have joined the IATA travel pass initiative.

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Several laboratories have also joined IATA’s travel pass network to provide test sites near international airports. In India, Apollo Hospitals has joined the network, and on Thursday SpiceJet announced its healthcare unit SpiceHealth has also been onboarded on to the IATA program.