Don't make a slow aviation recovery more difficult with quarantine measures: IATA

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged governments to find alternatives to maintaining or introducing arrival quarantine measures as part of post-pandemic travel restrictions.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged governments to find alternatives to maintaining or introducing arrival quarantine measures as part of post-pandemic travel restrictions. IATA's April survey of recent air travellers showed that 86 per cent of travellers were somewhat or very concerned about being quarantined while travelling and 69 per cent of recent travellers will not consider travelling if it involved a 14-day quarantine period.

"Major stimulus from governments combined with liquidity injections by central banks will boost the economic recovery once the pandemic is under control. But rebuilding passenger confidence will take longer," said IATA's Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac. "And even then, individual and corporate travellers are likely to carefully manage travel spend and stay closer to home," he said in a statement. The impacts of the crisis on long-haul travel will be much more severe and of a longer duration than what is expected in domestic markets.

This makes globally agreed and implemented biosecurity standards for the travel process all the more critical. "We have a small window to avoid the consequences of uncoordinated unilateral measures that marked the post-9/11 period. We must act fast," said de Juniac. "Even in the best of circumstances this crisis will cost many jobs and rob the economy of years of aviation-stimulated growth. To protect aviation's ability to be a catalyst for the economic recovery, we must not make that prognosis worse by making travel impracticable with quarantine measures," he added.

"We need a solution for safe travel that addresses two challenges. It must give passengers the confidence to travel safely and without undue hassle. And it must give governments confidence that they are protected from importing the virus," said de Juniac. "Our proposal is for a layering of temporary non-quarantine measures until we have a vaccine, immunity passports or nearly instant COVID-19 testing available at scale," said de Juniac.

IATA's proposal for a temporary risk-based layered approach to provide governments with the confidence to open their border without quarantining arrivals includes preventing travel by those who are symptomatic with temperature screening and other measures. It also includes addressing the risks of asymptomatic travellers with governments managing a robust system of health declarations and vigorous contact tracing. de Juniac said the mutual recognition of agreed measures is critical for the resumption of international travel. This is a key deliverable of the COVID-19 Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

"CART has a very big job to do with little time to waste. It must find an agreement among states on the measures needed to control COVID-19 as aviation re-starts. And it must build confidence among governments that borders can be opened to travellers because a layered approach of measures has been properly implemented globally. IATA and the whole industry support this critical work," he said. (ANI)

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