Airlines will need to meet a “harmonized” standard of health measures as air travel returns following the global pandemic, according to the CEO of Etihad Airways. “I can see that wellness certification will become a necessary function of how the whole of the world comes back to flying,” Tony Douglas told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble last week as part of the Global Aerospace Summit. For Etihad, a United Arab Emirates flag carrier, efforts to ensure “wellness” include sterilization of cabins, mandatory coronavirus tests for passengers and tracking wristbands to be worn during the compulsory 14-day quarantine. “We’ll adapt and we’ll adopt and therefore, wellness certification will probably be no (different) to the way in which visas used to be issued in order to give safe passage,” he said. The airline industry has been heavily affected by the Covid-19 health crisis after countries shut their borders in an attempt to slow the virus. While some air travel has resumed, the International Air Transport Association said the results have been “dismally disappointing” and have not delivered a “real bounce” to the sector. With no end in sight to the pandemic, Etihad’s Douglas said airlines will have to adapt to assure passengers that it’s safe to fly. “In exactly the same way with security standards after Lockerbie, after 9/11, and with the liquid bomb threats, that saw global aviation security standards harmonized everywhere, I forecast that that’s what will happen with wellness as well,” he said. Douglas said he was not comparing the coronavirus to terrorism, but pointing out the importance of “internationally aligned” processes. <br/>