ICAO CART Adopts International Standard for Vaccine Certificates

On Monday, Mr. Salvatore Sciacchitano, ICAO Council President, spoke to delegates attending the IATA AGM in Boston, his first official mission and first public address in person since taking office on 1 January 2020.

Mr. Sciacchitano used the forum to praise the U.S. for relaxing its entry requirements for vaccinated travellers, and encouraged governments around the world to approach air travel entry requirements on the basis of practical and evidence based approaches to manage risk.

He also confirmed that the Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce (CART), working in close collaboration with the WHO and the aviation industry, has updated its recommendations with regards to the certification issues surrounding COVID19 test results and vaccination certificates. Those updates are expected to be published "soon".

"The real issue is that there are recommendations, with a risk-based approach that could help restart, but unfortunately the measures are not implemented in a harmonized way," said Mr. Sciacchitano. "There is an issue of standardisation and certificates. This is an issue on which we are working on. We have adopted international standards for vaccine certificates. We use the platform already existing for e-passports, the same platform. As you know, you can use e-passports in any country and these passports can be read and recognised by any country. Well, the same system is needed for certificates of vaccination. We have already adopted a standard, we are working on interoperability and we hope that this standard and implementation will be widely implemented by beginning of next year."

The ICAO will host a virtual High-level Conference on COVID19 (HLCC 2021) from 12 to 22 October 2021 under the theme of “One Vision for Aviation Recovery, Resilience and Sustainability beyond the Global Pandemic”.

The conference will be an opportunity to promote and strengthen collective efforts to harmonize - a keyword at the IATA AGM - measures and risk management strategy through the implementation of the recommendations by the ICAO CART.

“There is far too much complexity in the way borders are re-opening. The potential for a global re-connect could be hijacked by bureaucracies favoring stand-alone “made-at-home” solutions over approaches that work across borders,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General. “The most important result that the ICAO HLCC could achieve is bringing commitment from states to reduce the evolving complexity. The second most important achievement would be recognition that we must return to normal and the production of harmonized guidance on how to do so, including the sunsetting of measures.”

See also: What is the IATA Travel Pass, and what does it mean for travellers, airlines and the global travel industry? Exclusive video interview with Vinoop Goel.

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