With tourism slowly opening up in the new normal, COVID-19 test results and vaccination may soon be a standard requirement for air travel. Singapore Airlines are trialing a new app which will speed up the verification process for COVID-19 test results and vaccination status.
According to the Singaporean flag carrier, their digital health verification solution will be first in the world to be based on the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Travel Pass framework. The service will be offered from 23rd December 2020 to passengers flying on Singapore Airlines via Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. If the trial is successful, they plan to extend the feature to other destinations on their route network.
It added that passengers that have taken their COVID-19 tests at selected clinics in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur will be given a digital or paper health certificate with a QR code. Singapore’s airport check-in staff and immigration authority would be able to verify the authenticity of the health certificates via a secure mobile app to ensure that passengers comply with Singapore’s entry requirements. For passengers that don’t have a digital certificate, they are still able to present a paper certificate for manual verification.
The airline claims that the digital health verification app will provide a faster and secure way to validate a passenger’s health credentials. Not only it allows faster airport check-in and immigration entry process, it enables travellers to better control their information and it offers a more seamless experience for their journey.
The IATA’s Timatic registry provides a back-end information on the COVID-19 testing and entry requirements as part of its modular Travel Pass solution. The airline plans to integrate the entire process into its SingaporeAir mobile app from mid-2021 using IATA’s Travel Pass framework.
The verification solution is developed by Affinidi which is a Temasek-founded technology company which enables portable and verifiable data credentials.
If you’re travelling to Singapore soon, you can get yourself tested at a health clinic that issues digitally-verifiable health certificates. In Malaysia, BP Healthcare is currently the sole participant of the ecosystem.
