Airline Passengers Eager to Travel Again But Over Half Still Support Tough Border Restrictions

Less than half of nearly 5,000 airline passengers who have taken at least one flight during the pandemic believe air travel restrictions have gone too far, even though over two-thirds of those surveyed said that their quality of life had suffered as a result of the current travel restrictions introduced by most countries to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

The findings were the result of the latest passenger confidence poll carried out by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) – a global airline trade group that represents 290 airlines around the world.

IATA has been lobbying governments to relax border and air travel restrictions, arguing that air travel can safely co-exist with the threat that COVID-19 poses to people and healthcare systems. The trade group wants border closures and quarantine rules replaced with mandatory pre-flight testing and a digital vaccination passport.

Passengers are simply unwilling to travel if there’s a possibility of quarantine at their destination – although the length and strictness of quarantine rules can vary wildly. Some countries simply require passengers to self-isolate at home while waiting for the results of post-arrival COVID-19 tests, while others like Hong Kong enforce hotel quarantine for up to 21-days.

“People want to get back to travel, but quarantine is the showstopper,” commented IATA director general Alexandre de Juniac on Tuesday. “As testing capacity and technology improves and the vaccinated population grows, the conditions for removing quarantine measures are being created,” he continued.

While the air travel industry is still years away from a full recovery, IATA is reporting a growing appetite from eager passengers wanting to take to the air as soon as travel restrictions are lifted.

Around 57 per cent of those polled in the latest survey plan to travel within just two months of ‘covid containment’, while 81 per cent said they would be much more likely to travel once they have been vaccinated.

A growing list of countries have either reopened or are planning to reopen their borders to passengers who can prove they are fully vaccinated. Some countries are also dropping testing and quarantine requirements for vaccinated passengers.

But a standardised way of proving someone is vaccinated is still a long way off. IATA has been touting its digital Travel Pass app, although only one country has so far publicly signed up to trial the app and the European Union is wrangling over the details of its own digital vaccination passport.

A growing list of airlines are, however, relying on the Travel Pass app to get air travel going again and Singapore Airlines will become the first carrier in the world to use the app for digital health verification, starting with passengers travelling from Singapore to London from 15 to 28 March 2021.

The app is still only available on mobile phones running on Apple’s iOS operating system.

Airline passengers also believe digital vaccination passports are all but inevitable as we emerge from the Coronavirus crisis. Around 89 per cent of those polled said governments should standardize vaccine and testing certificates – similar to yellow fever certificates.

But a word of warning – 78 per cent of airline passengers aid they would only be willing to use a vaccination passport if they have full control over their data.