QATAR. Qatar Airways aims to become the first airline in the Middle East to begin trialling the new IATA Travel Pass ‘digital passport’ mobile app, in partnership with the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
With the first phase of trials scheduled from March 2021 on the airline’s Doha to Istanbul route, Qatar Airways said the experiment will play an important role in delivering on its vision to have a more contactless, secure and seamless travel experience for its passengers.
The IATA Travel Pass will enable passengers to receive COVID-19 test results and verify they are eligible to undertake their journey. It will also allow travellers to safely and securely share their verified ‘OK to travel’ status with the airline and other stakeholders, even before their arrival at the airport.
In addition, the pass will provide up-to-date information on COVID-19 health regulations, helping travellers to ensure they meet the latest government entry requirements of their destination country.
Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker said: “With the most rigorous and robust COVID-19 safety programme in existence within the global aviation community, we are focused on ensuring that Qatar Airways will become the first airline in the Middle East to begin trialling the ground-breaking IATA Travel Pass technology and we are committed to supporting the airline industry as a whole through IATA’s Industry Advisory Panel.”
He added: “We hope that by investing in this technology we are able to further encourage passengers around the world to have greater confidence in the safety of air travel and begin making future travel plans over the coming months.”
IATA Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac praised the Qatari flag carrier for showing industry leadership. He said: “IATA Travel Pass will verify testing or vaccination credentials of travellers, which is the key to unlocking travel without quarantine measures.
“The Qatar Airways digital passport trial will help us build confidence among governments and travellers that IATA Travel Pass can securely and conveniently link traveller identities with their digital travel credentials.
“It will also help us prove that ICAO’s global standards for digital passports work. And it will highlight the need for governments to accelerate their work with industry to develop global standards for health certificates – a critical enabler to safely re-connecting the world.”
Qatar Airways recently became the first global airline in the world to achieve the prestigious 5-Star COVID-19 Airline Safety Rating by international air transport rating organisation, Skytrax.
This follows home airport Hamad International’s recent success in becoming the first airport in the Middle East and Asia to be awarded a 5-Star COVID-19 Airport Safety Rating from the same organisation.
Qatar Airways said that these recognitions provide assurance to passengers across the world that airline health and safety standards are subject to the highest possible standards of professional, independent scrutiny and assessment.
