It’s official: you will not be able to travel by air from March without a Covid 19 passport.
The International Air Carriers Association (IATA) will introduce in March the travel permit that takes into account the vaccination status of the holder and any COVID tests performed.
The IATA permit will be launched in the form of a digital application and will function as a mechanism to facilitate access on board aircraft. Those who appear in the database as vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 with a negative result will receive a green light (OK to travel) to affect the flight.
According to IATA, the main priority is to make people travel safely again. In the immediate term, this means establishing confidence in governments that systematic testing before departure can act as a replacement for quarantine requirements.
And that will eventually develop into a vaccination program. IATA Travel Pass is a solution for both. It is built in modules as an industrial solution based on open source standards. It can be used in combination with other vendors or as an end-to-end solution. The most important thing is that it is responsive to the needs of the industry, while allowing a competitive market.
The travel permit, which takes into account the vaccination of the holder and any COVID tests performed, becomes a reality in a few weeks.
The International Air Carrier Association (IATA), which includes nearly 300 airlines worldwide and is responsible for 82% of global air traffic, announced the launch of the document in late March.
The IATA permit is intended to speed up the check-in process and, implicitly, facilitate international travel, writes Reuters. According to the quoted source, the IATA permit “puts the test results for COVID-19 and vaccination certificates in a digital format, which will speed up the registration process for boarding”. It should be noted that the operation of this permit requires the existence of a vaccination certificate and / or the result of the COVID test, documents the issuance of which is not the responsibility of IATA.
Germany and France, the strongest EU countries with the most influence at European level, said on Wednesday they ruled out granting privileges to vaccinated people, as experts warned of the risk of restricting freedoms and discriminating. So overwhelmingly this message shows that the vaccination passport will not become a reality in the EU and if it exists it will only have a medical purpose, but not to allow or deny access to people in another country.
For its part, the Emmanuel Macron Administration rejected the idea of compulsory vaccination and the possibility of granting privileges to vaccinated persons, arguing that this would be a restriction of freedoms.