New Delhi: With local air transport limping back to normalcy, global airlines body International Air Transport Association (IATA) has favoured resuming cross-border flights once health care workers and other vulnerable section are given the Covid-19 shots.
A clutch of nations such as Greece, Poland, Latvia, Lebanon and the Seychelles have proposed to remove travel restrictions for vaccinated individuals. Many countries such as Germany and the US are implementing testing regimes to facilitate travel.
As vaccination programs roll out across the world, the airline industry sees re-linking of people, business and economies.
On its part, IATA is building the information infrastructure to safely re-start travel with the IATA Travel Pass.
“The IATA Travel Pass is an industry solution that will help governments, airlines and individual travelers manage vaccine or testing requirements with accurate information, secure identification and verified data. As an industry-supported solution, it will be cost effective, protect privacy and respect global standards,” the aviation body said in a statement.
IATA Director General & CEO Alexandre de Juniac said that airlines have adapted their operations in order to maintain cargo operations and some passenger services, while complying with the numerous and uncoordinated restrictions imposed.
“Building on this experience they can help governments with their preparations for eventually safely re-establishing global connectivity for their people, businesses and economies,” said de Juniac.
As governments across the world shut their borders early last year, airlines were the first to get impacted. As the restrictions have continued, the industry has been deeply frustrated. Losses have been mounting month after month forcing financially weak carriers to shut down.
In its July forecast, IATA had projected airline sector’s total loss in 2020 at $84.3 billion. It had said that airlines in the Asia-Pacific region would be the hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis, with losses expected to be $29 billion.
With daily infection count falling now globally and vaccine coverage gradually expanding, there is renewed hope that normalcy would return in the aviation sector sooner than expected earlier. There is also pressure on the governments to ease travel restrictions to restore all economic activities.
“As we have seen, unilateral government decisions are very effective in shutting down global mobility. Re-establishing the freedom to travel, however, can only be done with cooperation. Governments are already seeing how challenging that will be without global standards for vaccines or tests. This puts a spotlight on the urgency of the essential work being done by WHO, OECD and ICAO. IATA is participating in these initiatives and stands ready to help governments with implementation,” said de Juniac.