IATA plans digital travel pass to steer airlines towards recovery

IATA warned that the outlook for airlines has been weakened recently by tightening coronavirus restrictions but said it was preparing for a travel recovery later this year and would launch a digital travel pass in March. IATA said the sector would continue to bleed cash this year and raised its forecast for total annual airline cash burn to between $75b and $95b, up from the $48b it had forecast in December but still well short of roughly $150b last year. Despite mounting losses the industry focus is on how travel can restart at scale when borders are finally reopened and huge pent-up demand is released. “We need to plan for the recovery,” IATA DG Alexandre de Juniac said Wednesday. “We will need a way to digitally manage health credentials and we need a secure global standard to record test results and vaccinations.” IATA said its travel pass, which will formally launch at the end of March, will help to facilitate travel by putting COVID-19 test results and vaccine certificates in one digital format, speeding up check-in processes.<br/>