As travel opens up, COVID continues to linger across the globe, regulations continue to change, making air travel a complex affair. To re-open borders without quarantine, governments need to be confident that they are effectively mitigating the risk of importing COVID-19. This means having accurate information on passengers’ health status. Informing passengers on what tests, vaccines and other measures they require before travelling, details on where they can get tested and giving them the ability to share their tests and vaccination results in a verifiable, safe and privacy-protecting manner is the key to giving governments the confidence to open borders.
If you are tensed about the verification process and your medical documentation checking out at immigration or border control, you may want to give the new IATA Travel Pass a try. The digital health passport allows establishments to verify the health credentials of a passenger.
What is IATA’s travel pass?
IATA Travel Pass is a mobile app that helps travellers to store and manage their verified certifications for COVID-19 tests or vaccines. It is more secure and efficient than current paper processes used to manage health requirements, which has also resulted in health check errors and fraud. The IATA Travel Pass will also enable authorised labs and test centres to securely send test results or vaccination certificates to passengers. This is important given the potentially enormous scale of testing or vaccine verifications that will need to be securely managed.
Who or what is IATA?
The International Air Transport Association is the trade association for the world's airlines. It helps formulate industry policies, deals with major aviation issues and provides support in aviation activities.
How does it help?
The IATA Travel Pass provides:
• Governments with the means to verify the authenticity of tests or vaccinations and the identity of those presenting their certificates.
• Airlines with the ability to provide accurate information to their passengers on test requirements and verify that a passenger meets the requirements for travel.
• Laboratories with the means to issue certificates to passengers that will be recognized by governments, and
• Travellers with accurate information on test requirements, where they can get tested or vaccinated, and the means to securely convey the results/certificates to airlines and border authorities
How does it work?
The IATA Contactless Travel App is a module of the IATA Travel Pass. It allows you to
1. Create a ‘digital passport’,
2. Receive test and vaccination certificates and verify that they are sufficient for their itinerary, and
3. Share testing or vaccination certificates with airlines and authorities to facilitate travel.
The IATA Travel Pass is made of four modules:
1. A global registry of health requirements to help you find accurate, updated information about travel, testing and vaccine requirements for your journey
2. A global registry of testing/vaccination centres to help you find testing labs at your departure location and fulfil the requirements of your destination
3. A Lab App that enables authorised labs and testing centres to share your test or vaccination certificate with you digitally
4. A contactless travel app that helps you receive these certificates and share them with airlines and authorities as a verification of your health status. The app will also create a ‘digital passport' for you and help you manage all your travel documentation digitally.
IATA itself does not verify the results; it provides the means for registered labs to send test results and vaccine details to travellers in a secure manner whereby the details can be verified to guarantee authenticity. The passenger can't tamper with this data. There are also checks put in place to ensure the passenger’s identity to avoid transferring test results to a new person. For this, IATA works with government-approved laboratories.
How do you create your digital passport through the IATA Travel Pass?
1. Download the free IATA Travel Pass to the Smartphone (available on Android Play Store and iOS)
2. Log in
1. Take a selfie
2. Complete a ‘liveness test’ as instructed by the phone – i.e. move your head, close your eyes in front of the camera.
3. Take a scan of the data on the two lines at the bottom of the passport photo page.
4. Scan the data chip on the passport as prompted by the phone
5. The IATA Travel Pass then verifies that: a) the passport belongs to the person in front of the phone b) that the passport is genuine and has not been tampered with c) The verified digital credential is then stored on the passenger's phone and can be used as their ‘digital passport’.
Which airlines accept the IATA Travel Pass?
The IATA travel pass is being trialled by over 50 major airlines including Indigo, Spicejet, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Swiss, British Airways, Air France, Malaysia Airlines, Japan Airlines, Air New Zealand, Gulf Air, Air Baltic, Korean Air, Qantas and Virgin Atlantic.
Do you have to pay to use the pass?
No. The IATA Travel Pass is free to use
Questions?
Consult the IATA Travel Pass Questions & Answers