Personal travel will return from H2 2021: Iata chief

Personal and leisure travel will return from the second half of this year as borders reopen to tourists hungry to be free again and to reunite with families and friends, the director of the IATA said. Alexandre de Juniac said the recovery in business travel will be slower, and the actual volume of travel by the year end will still be low compared with the pre-Covid-19 period in 2019. "We will likely start seeing a change in the air travel landscape after May or June this year," he added. "We at Iata are already working with states to design and plan protocols and road maps for the reopening of borders." Key among these protocols is Iata's Travel Pass, a mobile health verification app which electronically captures a traveller's vaccination history and Covid-19 test results for cross-border safety checks. Singapore Airlines has been the first to officially announce that it will begin testing the Iata Travel Pass on flights from Singapore to London. Beginning Monday, passengers on that route using Apple iOS-enabled phones will be able to download the Travel Pass app and create a digital identification with their photo and passport information.<br/>