“Simplicity, Predictability, Practicality.” Those are the cornerstone principles of IATA’s latest recommendations for governments world-wide to implement measures to facilitate the return of global air travel.
The Geneva-based organization has released a new policy paper “From Restart to Recovery: A Blueprint for Simplifying Travel.”
IATA says its recommendations are supported by public opinion research of travellers.
“Travel is important,” Conrad Clifford, IATA’s Deputy Director General, said. “Pre-pandemic some 88 million livelihoods were directly connected to aviation. And the inability to travel freely by air has impacted the quality of life for billions of people.
“We know that travelers feel confident with the implementation of the COVID-19 safety measures. But they have clearly told us that the current travel experience needs to improve with better information, simpler processing and digital solutions.”
IATA's Blueprint provides recommendations focusing on the three principles in those three areas:
Simplified health protocols:
The organization wants all barriers - including testing - removed for travellers fully vaccinated with any WHO vaccine.
Digital solutions to process health credentials:
IATA has long been saying digital is the only solution. It wants to see governments implementing digital solutions including a web platform with entry requirements, digital health credentials and apps to quickly process and verify vaccination status.
IATA cites Canada’s ArriveCAN app as a “good example from which other countries can learn.”
COVID-19 measures proportionate to risk levels, continuously reviewed and updated
IATA wants governments to publish the risk assessments used to make travel policy decisions for public transparency.
It also wants countries to create ‘roadmaps’ to restore air travel, and is asking for restrictive policies to be reviewed and updated regularly, with ‘sunset’ clauses to ensure restrictions are removed when specific thresholds are met.
Clifford says the Blueprint will help governments, “with good practices and practical considerations. Over the next months we need to move from individual border openings to the restoration of a global air transport network that can reconnect communities and facilitate economic recovery.”
Open Jaw readers can access IATA's full report here.
