Global airlines have rallied governments behind the pledge to prevent communicable diseases and enhance quick recovery of the air travel sector through improved connectivity.
The airlines, under the aegis of International Air Transport Association (IATA), said a lot depends on collective efforts to upturn fortunes of global air travel that has remained stuck in the 1999 era.
States that attended the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) High Level Conference on COVID-19 (HLCC) had pledged taking effective measures to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and other communicable diseases by international air travel, in particular through the implementation of the ICAO’s Council for Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) guidelines.
They also committed to promoting, to the greatest extent possible, a harmonised and inclusive approach to facilitate safe international air travel, including alleviating or exempting testing and/or quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated or recovered passengers.
IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh, had complained that government-imposed restrictions continue to stop a revival of international travel.
“It remains 70 per cent down on pre-crisis levels. The ICAO HLCC commitments show that governments understand what is needed to re-start global connectivity. The task now is implementation.
“Some governments have already started. The imminent opening of the U.S. market to vaccinated travellers will be a big step forward. But we cannot let the output of this meeting remain as words on paper. The airline industry, 88 million livelihoods, 3.5 per cent of global GDP and billions of travellers are counting on governments to deliver on the risk-managed reopening of international travel to which they have committed,” Walsh said.
Earlier this month, ICAO published recommendations that will assist the realisation of the HLCC declaration. Known as CART 3, the outputs build on previous recommendations from CART as well as the take-off guidance and cross-border manuals.
Key new or updated recommendations to ICAO member states encompass: implementation and recognition of testing, recovery and vaccinations certificates (including digital formats); a harmonised multi-layer risk management approach among states to facilitate international travel entry of fully vaccinated and recovered passengers including consideration of alleviating or exempting such individuals from testing and/or quarantine measures. Also, the access for air crew to vaccination as quickly as possible, as recommended by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (SAGE).
“CART 3 is a roadmap toward a risk-based, data-driven approach to managing COVID-19. Its recommendations are the building blocks for states to achieve the ambition of the HLCC declaration.
“After a year-and-a-half of experience with COVID-19 we have the knowledge, data and experience to safely facilitate international travel without border restrictions. All the evidence and recommendations point towards restoring the freedom to travel for those vaccinated. And it is also clear that we have the capability to manage those without access to vaccination using testing,” Walsh said.
The industry is advanced in its preparation to efficiently manage travel health credentials with the IATA Travel Pass. It is a solution that responds to the HLCC’s recognition that a system will be needed to digitally manage pandemic-related testing, vaccination and recovery certification that protects privacy and personal data.
“Airlines cannot afford a restart that is compromised by paper-based processes for checking travel health credentials. Testing is complete and several airlines are already starting implementation of IATA Travel Pass across their networks. It’s also a ready-made solution for governments to be prepared to efficiently manage their documentation processes as demand ramps-up,” Walsh said.
