BA to roll out digital vaccine passports for passengers
British Airways is planning a version of a coronavirus vaccine passport to help passengers travel abroad easily — amid growing optimism the UK will be back to normal by summer. The airline plans to allow customers who have had two injections to register their status by uploading vaccine details on its smartphone app. Chief executive Sean Doyle said: ‘For us, it’s quite simple.
British Airways is planning its own vaccine passports (Picture: Getty Images)
I think people who’ve been vaccinated should be able to travel without restriction, and those who have not been vaccinated should be able to travel with a negative test result.’ He said he wanted to build on Britain’s success in the vaccine roll-out by leading the world with vaccine passports.
The travel industry has suffered a devastating year, with BA parent company IAG reporting a pre-tax loss of £6.7billion in 2020. Under road-map rules, foreign travel won’t be allowed until May 17 at the earliest. It is thought BA’s passport system will be ready in time for the rule change.
Passengers will be able to upload their vaccine details online (Picture: Getty Images)
The airline industry has been hit hard by the pandemic (Picture: Getty Images)
British Airways made the announcement as former government adviser Neil Ferguson — known as ‘Professor Lockdown’ — said he was ‘80 per cent sure’ the disease would be at ‘very low levels’ here within a few months. The professor, who quit his role last May after he was caught breaking lockdown rules, told The Observer the government ‘still needs to monitor things very carefully’ and booster jabs may be needed in autumn due to variants.
Source:metro.co.uk/2021/03/15/