The airline Ethiopian Airlines has partnered with the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) for the implementation of the African Union website, Trusted Travel, to make continental travel easier and more safe in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trusted Travel pass program “will ensure that national regulations regarding travel requirements related to coronavirus are met with a minimum of margin of error and hassle for the traveling public,” said the Ethiopian national company in a statement. based at Addis Ababa-Bole Airport. Ethiopian Airlines customers will now be able to “enjoy a hassle-free travel experience with their travel pass helping them verify that their medical information complies with various regulations at their destination.”
Africa CDC has mobilized for the establishment of its online portal “a large multi-stakeholder public-private partnership” with the help of its strategic partners, the PanaBIOS Consortium and Econet, in order to meet the current challenges posed by the difficulty citizens and institutions “to access accurate health information”, the high costs and inconveniences of cross-border travel, and “insufficient data for health policy and biosecurity planning”. This Trusted Travel solution, not yet available as a mobile application, will help to “validate the test and vaccination certificates”, and to verify that they are sufficient for their itinerary and to share the test or vaccination certificates with airlines and authorities to facilitate travel. According to Ethiopian Airlines, the solution “will also prevent fraudulent documents and make air travel more convenient.”
Getinet Tadesse, chief information officer of the Star Alliance company, said in a statement, “We are providing new digital opportunities for our passengers to fully and safely restore air travel. We are pleased to have introduced a digital platform that will be essential in increasing the number of passengers while making air travel safer. The solution is able to meet the travel needs of passengers during the pandemic, as it helps them validate their testing and vaccination documents before departure. As a safety-oriented airline, we strive to make travel safe and transparent, especially when it comes to the implementation of prevention strategies ”against the novel coronavirus.
Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC, congratulates himself on the “pioneering spirit of Ethiopian Airlines”, and underlines how essential these partnerships are in the current context: “The scale of the challenge posed by Covid -19 requires an unprecedented level of innovation and cooperation. This is why Ethiopian’s laudable decision to join Trusted Travel marks a turning point in the continent’s continued fight against this pandemic’s quest to suppress Africa’s development ambitions. ”