Singapore Airlines (SIA) has started trials on a new digital health verification process, which will be the first in the world to be based on the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Travel Pass framework.
This app offers Singapore Airlines customers the ability to securely store and present information related to COVID-19 tests, as well as their vaccination status in the future.
This service kicked off on December 23 with customers traveling on flights operated by Singapore Airlines from Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur to Singapore with plans to extend it to cities in the SIA route network.
Customers who take their COVID-19 tests at selected clinics in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur would be given either digital or paper health certificates with a QR code. Airport check-in staff and Singapore’s immigration authority would be able to verify the authenticity of these certificates via a secure mobile app, and ensure that the customers meet Singapore’s entry requirements. Customers without a digital certificate can also present the paper version for manual verification.
This is a faster and more secure way to validate a passenger’s health credentials than the existing protocols, speeding up both the airport check-in process and the immigration entry process into Singapore. It would make it easier for SIA customers to control their information, reduce friction during their travel journey, and result in a more seamless experience with the aid of digital technologies in the new normal.
Singapore Airlines also plans to integrate the entire process into the SingaporeAir mobile app from around mid-2021, again using the Travel Pass framework. This would support the drive towards a secure and convenient industry standard for the verification of Covid-19 test and vaccinations.
SIA is working closely with its partners in Singapore, including the Ministry of Transport, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) and Changi Airport Group (CAG) in the facilitation of these trials and towards the eventual restoration of a seamless travel experience for its customers.
“COVID-19 tests and vaccinations will be an integral part of air travel for the foreseeable future. We are offering a digital solution that allows the easy and secure verification of this information, and supports the industry’s safe and calibrated recovery from this pandemic. Using IATA’s robust Travel Pass framework would also provide our customers and governments with the assurance that they need about the security and authenticity of the test and vaccination information,” said JoAnn Tan, acting senior vice president marketing planning, Singapore Airlines, in a statement.
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