UAE’s Emirates and Etihad Airways to trial Covid-19 travel pass

Dubai’s Emirates and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways have partnered with the International Air Transport Association to introduce a travel pass for passengers who have been inoculated against Covid-19 or have tested negative.

The IATA Travel Pass will be offered on selected flights from Abu Dhabi in the first quarter, state-owned Etihad said on Tuesday. The carrier will extend the pass to other destinations if the initial trial is successful.

The travel pass will keep passengers in control of their data and facilitate sharing their test results with airlines and authorities for travel, Etihad said.

Emirates, the world’s largest long-haul carrier, will implement phase 1 of the pass in April to validate Covid-19 tests for flights departing from Dubai.

The United Arab Emirates has administered almost 2 million vaccine doses and has the second-highest rates of inoculations per 100 people globally after Israel.

IATA, the industry group, had planned a test program with British Airways parent IAG SA at the end of last year. And last month, Singapore Airlines started trials on a new digital verification process based on IATA’s Travel Pass Framework.

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