The hard-pressed airline industry wants to develop a kind of Covid passport that will show that the traveler is not infected with the coronavirus or that confirms that the person has been vaccinated. The international cooperation organization IATA says they have an app ready early next year.
The IATA cooperative organization predicts that the aviation industry in Europe will lose a total of $27 billion in 2020. According to their forecast, the number of passengers in Europe will decrease by just over 60 percent. The Swedish Transport Agency and IATA believe that aviation will not return to 2019 levels until 2024 at the earliest.
But a possible solution to get people to dare to fly is to introduce so-called covid passports. This is so that more people will dare to fly, but above all because airlines want passengers to avoid quarantine once they arrive at their destination.
– I think it will be necessary. Many people will not want to fly otherwise. But it must be arranged quickly, because otherwise the volume of passengers will not start. And volume means everything, says aviation journalist Jan Ohlsson. Airlines always strive for a high cabin factor, that is, that the planes should be as full as possible.
IATA is currently developing a form of Covid passport, an app where you can have all your health and vaccination certificates digitally. They expect it to be ready for use in early 2021.
– It is a better alternative than closed borders and long quarantine, says Catrin Mattsson, CEO of IATA in Sweden.
Several cases of counterfeiting
Today, many countries require travelers to have a recent PCR test that shows that they do not have an ongoing infection with COVID-19. But there is no standard and different countries have different requirements for travelers. In addition, there are several examples of forged health certificates that have surfaced, says aviation journalist Jan Ohlsson.
– A few weeks ago, 200 travelers showed up at Moscow airport to fly to China, all of whom had the same type of document stating that they did not have Covid. It shouldn't be like that, says Jan Ohlsson.
Source: svt.se
