Tag Archives: International Air Transport Association (IATA)

Airlines urge G7 to back data-driven travel reopening

PARIS (Reuters) -Global airlines urged the G7 rich nations on Wednesday to replace blanket COVID-19 travel curbs with more flexible restrictions informed by data, artificial intelligence and risk analysis.

Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), also said during an online event that airlines and passengers should be allowed to assess travel risks based on increasingly abundant health data.

The former British Airways head said he was confident Europe could begin to return to normal travel in the second half of the year as vaccination rates rise.

“With sensible testing and screening methods in place we can safely open our borders to regain the freedom that has been taken from us,” he said.

Ministers and officials from G7 countries are meeting in London on June 4-5 ahead of a leaders’ summit next week.

Airlines weakened by 15 months of lockdowns are facing a slower than expected recovery, as lingering travel restrictions overshadow the peak northern summer season. Concern over the spread of more transmissible coronavirus variants also threatens to slow reopening plans.

IATA drew on UK testing data that showed a low incidence of COVID-19 in arriving passengers, during the joint presentation with Airbus and Boeing representatives, who demonstrated digital travel risk models.

“These data tell us we can do better,” Walsh said, citing a 2.2% positive rate among 365,895 tests carried out in February-May, according to the National Health Service – or 1.46% excluding higher-risk “red list” countries.

Walsh also singled out Greece, which has largely reopened to foreign tourists, for its use of testing data and artificial intelligence to monitor risk in real time.

“We’re seeing more and more countries questioning whether they have the appropriate measures in place,” he said.

But David Heymann, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, sounded a note of caution.

“What’s really set off governments is the variants, and the fear they will escape the protection offered by vaccines,” he said during the same event.

“No matter what you show in terms of models they’re still going to be concerned about the variants.”

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Additional reporting by Laurence Frost. Editing by Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)

Travel restrictions challenge vaccine rollout, airlines warn

PARIS (Reuters) – Air cargo operators may struggle to distribute new COVID-19 vaccines effectively unless pandemic travel restrictions are eased, global airlines cautioned on Monday.

The warning came in vaccine transport guidelines issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is pushing governments to replace travel curbs and quarantines with testing.

“If borders remain closed, travel curtailed, fleets grounded and employees furloughed, the capacity to deliver life-saving vaccines will be very much compromised,” the IATA document said.

Moderna Inc. said on Monday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine had proved 94.5% effective in a clinical trial, a week after rival drugmaker Pfizer reported 90% efficacy findings for its vaccine. Once approved, both vaccines are likely to require transport and storage well below freezing, posing logistical hurdles.

Widespread grounding of passenger flights that normally carry 45% of global cargo in their holds has taken out capacity, thinning the air freight network and driving up prices.

Existing immunization campaigns have struggled with the partial shutdown. The World Health Organization and UNICEF “have already reported severe difficulties in maintaining their planned vaccine programs during the COVID-19 crisis due, in part, to limited air connectivity,” IATA said.

Vaccines will need to be shipped to developing countries reliant on passenger services for cargo, IATA’s head of cargo Glyn Hughes told Reuters. Even in industrialized states, vaccine dispersal may be a tighter bottleneck than production, requiring shipments to secondary airports on passenger jets.

In preparation for the challenge of mass vaccine distribution, governments should move to reopen key passenger routes backed by robust testing, the airline body argues.

“There are several more months for governments to go through the planning cycle,” Hughes said, leaving enough time to “get passenger networks safely resumed, looking at safe travel corridors (and) mutual acceptance of testing procedures.”

(Reporting by Laurence Frost; editing by David Evans)