United tries out new virus-test app on Heathrow-Newark flight

A United Airlines Holdings Inc. flight from London to Newark, New Jersey, performed the first U.S. trial of a new digital health app designed to share travelers’ coronavirus test results.

The CommonPass mobile app, created by the Commons Project Foundation and the World Economic Forum, is seen as a tool to help governments reopen borders by providing test data. The approach offers a common standard while avoiding paper documents and the risk of identity fraud, Paul Meyer, the foundation’s chief executive officer, said at a news conference in Newark.

Officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention observed the arrival of Flight 15 at Newark Liberty International on Wednesday. The plane carried several passengers who were tested before boarding at London’s Heathrow Airport, with their results uploaded to the mobile app.

The first CommonPass trial occurred earlier this month with a Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. flight from Hong Kong to Singapore. Airlines and airports worldwide have been crafting pilot programs in an effort to open air-travel corridors on specific routes in which travelers could avoid stringent quarantines by proving a negative test result.

Airlines for America, a trade group representing big U.S. carriers, has lobbied the Trump administration to allow such a corridor between New York and London, as have airports and other travel companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The digital framework for proving virus tests and future vaccination “gives countries more flexibility and opportunity to avoid closing the borders and having mandatory quarantines in place for all arriving countries,” said Dr. Brad Perkins, a co-founder of the Commons Project Foundation and its chief medical officer.

The foundation was formed in 2018 with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation as a means to democratize digital documentation. Its initial efforts focused on allowing East African truck drivers a way to show their vaccinations when they crossed national borders.