Digitalization needed for smooth restart
- Date: 27-May-2021
- Source: Zawya
- Sector:Tourism
- Country:Saudi Arabia
Digitalization needed for smooth restart
(Geneva) -- The International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned of potential airport chaos unless governments move quickly to adopt digital processes to manage travel health credentials (COVID-19 testing and vaccine certificates) and other COVID-19 measures. The impacts will be severe: "Without an automated solution for COVID-19 checks, we can see the potential for significant airport disruptions on the horizon. Already, average passenger processing and waiting times have doubled from what they were pre-crisis during peak time reaching an unacceptable three hours. And that is with many airports deploying pre-crisis level staffing for a small fraction of pre-crisis volumes. Nobody will tolerate waiting hours at check-in or for border formalities. We must automate the checking of vaccine and test certificates before traffic ramps-up. The technical solutions exist. But governments must agree digital certificate standards and align processes to accept them. And they must act fast,“ said Willie Walsh, IATA's Director General. Over the past two decades air travel has been reinvented to put passengers in control of their journeys through self-service processes. This enables travelers to arrive at the airport essentially "ready to fly“. And with digital identity technology, border control processes are also increasingly self-service using e-gates. Paper-based COVID-19 document