DOHA, Qatar, 28 January 2021: Qatar Airways will begin trialling the new IATA Travel Pass ‘Digital Passport’ mobile app, in partnership with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), starting this March 2021.
It plans to become the first airline to offer the travel pass in the Middle East and says the trial will play an important role to ensure a more contactless, secure and seamless travel experience.
The first phase of trials of the ‘Digital Passport’ will be rolled out on the airline’s Doha to Istanbul route, enabling 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 they arrive at the airport.
IATA Travel Pass will also 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, Akbar Al Baker said: “With the 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 technology.”
The IATA Travel Pass effectively acts as a ‘digital passport’ for travellers and is the latest tool in the fight against the spread of Covid-19.
IATA director general and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac said: “ The 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 currently operates more than 800 weekly flights to over 120 destinations across the globe. By the end of March, Qatar Airways plans to rebuild its network to 130 destinations.
