Qatar Airways to trial 'Digital Passport' for seamless travel

_A Monitor Report
Doha : Qatar Airways targets to become the first airline in the Middle East to begin trialling the innovative new IATA Travel Pass 'Digital Passport' mobile app, in partnership with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), from March 2021. The trial will play an important role in the airline's vision to have a more contactless, secure and seamless travel experience for its passengers.
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 their arrival 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.
Akbar Al Baker, Chief Executive, Qatar Airways Group, 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."
Alexandre de Juniac, Director General and CEO, IATA, said, "Qatar Airways is showing its industry leadership. 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."