Qatar Airways' IATA Travel Pass Trial Begins with Doha - Istanbul Flights

Qatar Airways commenced its trial of the IATA Travel Pass ‘Digital Passport’ mobile app on Thursday.

Passengers on the airline’s Doha (DOH) to Istanbul route are the first group to experience the app which is designed to ensure that travellers have all the required documents for their trip, and can benefit from the airline's vision for a contactless air travel experience.

With IATA Travel Pass, passengers also receive up-to-date information on COVID19 health regulations and can travel with the confidence that their COVID19 test results and/or proof of having been vaccinated are genuine and accepted in the country of departure, transit and arrival.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Mr. Akbar Al Baker, said, “We have confidence in the credibility of the IATA Travel Pass as the industry’s most reliable and innovative solution given its strong data privacy compliance, long-standing entry rules engine and ability to provide an end-to-end solution. We are proud to be at the forefront of trialling this platform, being one of the first globally and the first airline in the Middle East to trial the technology.

“With the strictest data privacy regulations, IATA Travel Pass is a huge step towards proving that ICAO’s global standards for digital passports do work. It will also assist in laying the foundation for governments across the world to come together in the development of standardised regulations to reduce the current patchwork of red tape across the international travel industry. In partnership with the World Health Organisation, IATA is also engaged in helping to define a standardised vaccine certificate that will be necessary for the opening of borders and scalable increase of global travel”

IATA Director General and CEO, Mr. Alexandre de Juniac, said, “Qatar Airways’ full deployment of IATA Travel Pass is a significant milestone in restarting global connectivity. Governments are requiring testing or vaccination certifications to enable travel and the IATA travel app helps travellers to securely and conveniently manage and provide their credentials. All passengers using IATA Travel Pass can be confident that their data is protected and governments can trust that the “OK to travel” means both a genuine credential and a verified identity.”

See also: IATA Travel Pass - Exclusive Video Interview with Vinoop Goel

PODCAST

Editor's note: As the above video interview was conducted over the internet, I would like to apologise that the audio and visual quality are not up to the same HD/UHD quality that it normally would be. Hopefully it won't be too long until we are once again conducting exclusive video interviews in person, but for now we have to make do with what we have. Thank you.

See also: Future of Airline Distribution and NDC - Interview with Yanik Hoyles, IATA (November 2019).

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