(TAN): Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) will become the first airline in the Lufthansa Group to trial the new Travel Pass app that is being developed by IATA, the airline industry’s umbrella organization. The trial will be done on the airline’s Zurich-London Heathrow route from April 22 onwards. SWISS has also been testing further such concepts since mid-March.
The new IATA Travel Pass app enables travellers to check up on the latest coronavirus-related entry provisions for their country of destination. It also allows them to have their Covid-19 test results sent directly to the app. This in turn enables the travellers to demonstrate to airlines and authorities that they meet the relevant entry requirements, without having to divulge further information about their personal health. The new app should also bring greater speed and efficiency to the corresponding airport procedures.
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The new IATA Travel Pass app meets the strictest data protection requirements. All the user’s health details remain on the app: at no point are they transmitted or centrally stored, which assures the user of total control over all their personal data. The IATA Travel Pass has already been accepted as an official health document for entry purposes by the Singapore authorities.
“We support all endeavours to make travel simple and reliable again during the coronavirus pandemic,” said SWISS CEO Dieter Vranckx. “Digital health documents like the IATA Travel Pass are making an invaluable contribution to reconciling the demand for mobility with the need for health protection, to make it easier for our customers to plan their journeys with confidence and to restore the trust in travel as a whole. We still consider it essential that consistent, unified and mobility-promoting parameters are established and maintained, along with internationally recognized and standardized processes to deliver digital test and vaccination certifications. This is the only way to ensure that Switzerland can retain the international links that are so vital to the country in economic terms.”
