The Airport Council International (ACI) World has joined the World Economic Forum and five leading global airlines to push the goal of moving forward on a unified approach to safe international air travel.
CommonTrust Network carriers JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines, United Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic will begin the roll-out of CommonPass in December on select flights departing from New York, Boston, London and Hong Kong.
CommonPass lets individuals access their lab results and vaccination records, and consent to have that information used to validate their COVID status without revealing any other underlying personal health information. The purpose of CommonPass and the Common Trust Network is to enable safer airline and cross-border travel by giving both travelers and governments confidence in each traveler’s verified COVID-19 status.
CommonPass was first successfully trialed in October on Cathay Pacific Airways and United Airlines flights between Hong Kong, Singapore, London and New York. Government trial observers included the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), and the United Kingdom Border Force and Ministry for Transport.
“As the world works to overcome the pandemic, all countries face the challenge of how to reopen borders for travel and commerce while protecting their populations’ health,” ACI World Director General Luis Felipe de Oliveira said. “The CommonTrust Network and CommonPass will help to foster this consistent approach, especially as it will include more than just the aviation industry.”
This support from ACI World comes a week after the three airline alliances – Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance – called for a globally harmonized approach for validation and authentication of testing and vaccination, highlighting CommonPass.
“United has consistently demonstrated its leadership in developing innovative solutions to help ensure a safer travel experience for our customers during these challenging times, which now includes being one of the first airlines to join the CommonTrust Network,” said Steve Morrissey, United’s vice president, regulatory and policy. “We were proud to be the first U.S. carrier to trial CommonPass on October 21st from London Heathrow to Newark.”
