iata international travel

What is the IATA Travel Pass and do I need it to travel?

Oct 26, 2021 • 5 min read

The IATA Travel Pass is one of a variety of “health credential” services © BlackCAT / Getty Images

For most international travel, you’ll have to provide proof of vaccination, a negative COVID-19 test or proof you’ve recovered from the virus in order to cross borders.

With many travelers and airlines looking for a simple way to store this information digitally, the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Travel Pass health information checking service is being rolled out by more and more airlines, and so are its competitors like CommonPass and VeriFLY. They’re not vaccination passports, so what are they, how do they work, who’s behind them—and should you use them? 

What is the IATA Travel Pass? 

The IATA Travel Pass is one of a variety of “health credential” services that some airlines are using to help them check the validity of the proof you send them of your COVID-19 status—whether that’s your vaccination, a recent test, recovery from the disease, or a combination of all three.

Read more:  What is a vaccine passport and do I need one to travel?

It’s essentially an app on your phone where you take pictures of your vaccination records, a recent test or the proof you’ve recovered from COVID-19 within a certain time frame specified by the government of wherever you’re traveling to (and sometimes from). These are then checked and your airline is given either a green light or a red light for you to travel, according to the government travel rules of your destination country.

Dozens of airlines are trialling or using it—and other providers’ passes—to help them process your documentation, ideally well before you get to the airport. This helps them reduce queues and the cost of having staff members check your documents in person.

It’s different to the national or regional health pass wallets, like France’s TousAntiCovid , New York’s Excelsior Pass or the UK’s NHS COVID Pass . However, in the future, there may be links between them.

Other passes exist, with CommonPass and VeriFLY also in relatively wide use. Bear in mind that airlines may be trialling multiple pass options on different routes, so check any emails carefully and have a look at their website to confirm which you can use. 

How do they work?

You take pictures of your documentation or upload an existing picture, depending on the functionality of the various apps. This is then processed by the app provider’s staff—whether the IATA Travel Pass, CommonPass, VeriFLY or whatever—who confirm whether your documentation is valid.

It can be a bit of a logistical humdinger to need to take a picture of the everyday vaccination pass or test result that lives in one app on your phone with another app on your phone. Keeping paper copies of your vaccination certificates and test results can be very helpful, but in a pinch you can always find a friend to send them to, and then take a picture of their phone.

Once the processing is done, which usually is a matter of minutes or hours, you essentially get a green light that you’re good to go, or a red light that means you can’t travel until you’ve fixed a problem.

That might be because: you’re vaccinated with a vaccine not recognised in your destination; you sent in the wrong type of test (antigen not PCR, say); your test wasn’t taken recently enough (perhaps it was taken 49 hours before you are supposed to travel, but your destination requires it to be less than 48); or simply that they weren’t able to read your documents. 

Read more: PCR tests for travel: everything you need to know 

Do keep an eye out for this—getting another vaccination isn’t exactly a fixable problem, but getting another test might not be the end of the world.

Who runs these passes?

IATA’s travel pass is run by an airline trade industry group, the International Air Transport Association , which is sort of a Better Business Bureau for airlines. Remember, IATA is not a governmental or intergovernmental body, it’s an airline association.

CommonPass is run by a non-profit public trust with links to the World Economic Forum (sometimes referred to as Davos, after the location of its annual meeting) and the Rockefeller Foundation.  VeriFLY , meanwhile, is a product of biometric authentication software business Daon . Airlines are essentially outsourcing the verification to these apps, but in some cases, airlines are requesting that you upload the relevant information to them directly.

If you’re concerned about what happens to your data, that’s certainly a valid concern. As one example, British Airways uses VeriFLY for all flights into the UK. But its small print says: “The VeriFLY App is completely independent of British Airways and you are submitting your information directly to Daon (acting as the data controller), please check Daon’s privacy policy and terms and conditions.” However, it’s worth reading the fine print on VeriFLY to fully understand how your data will be used. 

Where will I use a travel pass, is it mandatory, and should I use it?

A growing number of airlines are using them, so you’re likely to be seeing them the next time you take an international flight. 

At present, they’re usually not fully required, but you can expect to receive multiple emails encouraging you to use them. You may also start seeing fast-track queues for people who have taken the time to enter their data. After all, it will take less time for an expert on these processes to check your documents remotely a day in advance than for a stressed check-in agent to try to figure out whether your vaccination certificate is valid or not.

So should you use it? Well, if you have privacy concerns, those seem valid—this technology has been developed pretty quickly, and it’s worth reading the privacy policies of the app should you have any reservations.

For more information on COVID-19 and travel, check out Lonely Planet's Health Hub .

Read more:  What is a vaccine passport and do I need one to travel? PCR tests for travel: everything you need to know What do I do if my flight gets cancelled - and can I get a refund?

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IATA interactive map for global Covid-19 entry regulations by country

IATA has introduced a free online interactive world map to provide travelers with the latest COVID-19 entry regulations by country.

The map relies on IATA’s Timatic database which contains comprehensive information on documentation required for international travel.

To keep pace with the dynamic situation with respect to COVID-19, Timatic is updated more than 200 times per day to provide accurate travel restrictions specific to the current pandemic, based on one’s citizenship and country of residence.

‘’As the aviation industry prepares to safely restart, travelers will need to know which countries’ borders are open and what health restrictions exist. Travelers can rely on Timatic for comprehensive and accurate information on travel during the pandemic,’’ said Anish Chand, IATA’s Assistant Director, Timatic.

In a recent survey commissioned by IATA regarding concerns people had about air travel post-crisis, more than 80% of travelers said they are as concerned about potential quarantine restrictions as they are about actually catching the virus during travel. With the uncertainties and quickly changing health restrictions from one country to the next during the pandemic, this new resource for travel planning is timely and important.

‘’We support the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) guidelines to harmonize the measures to keep people safe while traveling and provide the confidence to open borders without quarantine measures. And this Timatic offering will be a vital tool for travelers who need easy access to accurate information on entry requirements,” said Chand.

IATA’s COVID-19 interactive world map, also available for mobile, can be viewed  here . The Timatic COVID-19 Alerts service was also launched this week to offer subscribers real-time notifications for all travel updates related to the pandemic.

Award-winning transport journalist with more than 35 years experience covering air cargo, sea freight, rail and global supply chains. Trade press roles at editor and daily news editor level.

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IATA – International Air Transport Association

Travel and Tourism have been recognized as the single largest item in world trade. Perhaps, it is likely to become the largest global industry by the turn of this millennium. Already accounting for more than 9.5% of total world trade, 30% of the service sector, and about 13% of the global employment.

In fact it, it has become a multi-facet industry that affects nearly all the sector of the international and national economy. To develop and promote tourism at globally, there are several international, national, and regional travel and tourism promotion organizations such as WTO , PATA , ASTA , IATA , and ICAO .

Apart from these promotional organizations, there are several travel trade organizations, with specific deal with travel agency and tour operation business at regional travel, national and global travel.

Travel trade organizations provide a common platform to solve travel company’s various problems such as HRD, financial, marketing, safeguard interests, lay down the code of ethics, and also helps the agency on a variety of travel issues.

International Air Transport Association (IATA)

The International Air Transport Association was founded in 1945 by the airlines of several countries to regulate the world’s civil air transport. It is the successor to the International Air Transportation Association founded at Hague in 1919.

As a non-governmental organization, it drew its legal existence from a special Act of the Canadian Parliament in December 1945. It closely resembles the International Civil Aviation Organization in terms of its activities and organizational structure.

IATA is a voluntary, non-exclusive, non-political democratic organization and its membership is open to any operating airline which has been licensed to provide scheduled air services by the government.

Objectives of IATA

IATA is purely a non-political, commercial regulatory organization and has powers to regulate every act of its constituents. The main objectives of IATA are:

• To ensure the safe, regular and economical air transport for the benefits of people worldwide.
• To provides a means of collaboration.
• To prevent economic waste caused by unreasonable competition.
• To encourage the art of aircrafts design and operation for peaceful purposes.
• To promote and develop international tourism.
• To provide a common platform for travel agencies and tour operators .
• To provide training and education facilities for members.
• To cooperate with the International Civil Aviation Organisation and other international and national organizations.

Membership of IATA

IATA has two types of members:

Active Members

Associate members.

Active membership is further divided into two types :

• Trade Associations and Traffic Co-Ordination
• Trade Associations

Any airline which has been licensed to operate scheduled air services by the appropriate authority to transport passengers, mail, and cargo between the territories of two countries, is eligible to become an active member of the association. The active members have various rights, duties, and authority. Presently, there are more than 250 airlines as active members from 200 countries.

This membership is open to any other organization/enterprise who is operating in transport, hotels, resorts, travel trade and indirectly involved in tourism-related activities. The application for the membership in the association is to be submitted in the writing for the consideration and action of the executive committee and all such concerns can become active or associate members, only after approval by the executive committee.

However, any enterprise whose application is rejected by the committee can appear in the next general meeting of the committee.

Organizational Structure of IATA

IATA administration is carried out under a director-general, corporate secretary, senior director, regional directors, and regional technical directors. The overall control and management of the association lie with the general meeting of the members which take place annually.

Basically, the meeting has two main responsibilities (a) Internal affairs of the association and (b) Functions- Finance, accounting, medical, traffic conference, legal, technical and other activities related to industry. The internal affairs include the appointment of the president and approval of the budget etc.

Roles and Contribution of IATA

IATA is a non-government origination that regulates the world’s civil air transportation. IATA plays an important role in the travel trade and civil air transportation. Some main and important role and contributions of IATA are following as:

• IATA provides a common platform to solve many travel trade problems.
• IATA helps travel agencies and tour operators to establish their professionalism and integrity in the field of tourism.
• IATA helps to simplify the traveling process.
• IATA helps in the promotion and development of tourism.
• IATA helps the government to formulate civil aviation policy, paid tourism policy.
• It lays down rules and conditions for the approval of a travel trade organization.

Passenger travel still on the road to recovery

IATA announced that the air travel recovery continued through November 2022.

Total traffic in November 2022 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) rose 41.3% compared with November 2021. Globally, traffic is now at 75.3% of November 2019 levels.

​​International traffic rose 85.2% versus November 2021. Asia-Pacific continued to report the strongest year over year results with all regions showing improvement compared with the prior year. November 2022 international RPKs reached 73.7% of November 2019 levels.

Domestic traffic for November 2022 was up 3.4% compared with November 2021 with travel restrictions in China continuing to dampen the global result. Total November 2022 domestic traffic was at 77.7% of the November 2019 level.

“Traffic results in November reinforce that consumers are thoroughly enjoying the freedom to travel. Unfortunately, the reactions to China’s reopening of international travel in January reminds us that many governments are still playing science politics when it comes to COVID-19 and travel. Epidemiologists, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and others have said that the reintroduction of testing for travelers from China can do little to contain a virus that is already present around the world,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

“And China’s objections to these policy measures are compromised by their own pre-departure testing requirements for people traveling to China. Governments should focus on using available tools to manage COVID-19 effectively—including improved therapeutics and vaccinations—rather than repeating policies that have failed time and again over the last three years.”

Credit | iStock

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View the discussion thread.

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