Starting on 19 May, Iberia will test the new IATA Travel Pass on flights to Panama. The government of Panama has been the first in Latin America to accept this APP for the digitization of COVID tests, allowing customers to use it for documentation checks upon arrival.
The Spanish airline has been helping IATA to develop the health passport app, which it first tested on a flight from Madrid to Uruguay on 10 April.
The IATA Travel Pass will bring a global framework of consistency, predictability, and security for air travellers, who will no longer have to submit paper documents at airports to prove they are in compliance with the health requirements of the country of destination.
The Travel Pass is a smartphone app for storing, managing, and verifying the health documentation passengers need in order to enter other countries, including certificates of negative Covid-19 test results, and in a second phase, their certificates of vaccination against the disease.
Iberia has contacted customers due to fly on IB6339 Madrid-Panama City on Wednesday, 19 May, to invite them to try out the new Travel Pass.
To do so they must visit the iberia.com website, where they can:
1. Download the app to their IOS smartphones –later in May a version for Android phones will be available.
2. Create an account with a photo to be used for biometric identification, and link it to their passport number.
3. Book an appointment for a Covid-10 test at any of the participating laboratories listed in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, or Seville, and soon in other Spanish cities.
4. The test results will be sent to the customer and to IATA, which will verify them for health authorities in the country of destination.
5. At the airport of departure, the customer needs only to show the app screen confirming the he or she is “OK to travel”. However, passengers will still have to show other paper travel documents –passports, visas, etc.
