Following a 30-day trial, travel pass creator AOKpass and airport technology company SITA have signed a partnership to deploy what is claimed to be the world’s most operationally advanced health pass platform.
The trial was conducted for flights to and from airports in San Francisco (SFO), Los Angeles (LAX) and Paris (CDG). Another joint deployment will be launched in the coming weeks to support the Hong Kong (HKG) to Singapore (SIN) travel bubble scheduled to reopen in late May. The companies note that deployments of ICC AOKpass have already involved 13 countries and over 500 flights.
“AOKpass has been operationalizing successful large-scale deployments for airlines and airports since September 2020, providing safe and secure Covid-19 status verification for thousands of passengers. We’re just one of the many critical players needed to reactivate international travel. Interoperating with industry leaders such as SITA is vital to any truly global effort to overcome the unprecedented barriers Covid has imposed on cross-border mobility,” stated Darren Toh, CEO of AOKpass.
SITA’s IT system products are already widely used as the technical infrastructure for airport, airline and border operations worldwide. By integrating the AOKpass system, SITA says it will now also be able to embed privacy-preserving health pass verification functionality into IT systems and products.
Jeremy Springall, vice president of SITA at Borders, commented, “We’re excited to partner with AOKpass on this next milestone in the journey to reopen borders in a safe and cost-efficient fashion. Our work with governments, airlines and airports globally helps to ensure sustainable operations while ensuring a frictionless passenger experience that reduces the risk of congestion at airports and border points.
“A key benefit of SITA Health Protect is a unique ability to seamlessly integrate with multiple travel pass or ‘health passport’ schemes, bridging the gap between these schemes and aviation and border processes. Critically, by incorporating Advance Passenger Processing (APP), it enables authorities to make an informed decision at the point of check-in about whether a passenger can travel, improving the safety of all passengers.”