Airline sector suggests new norms amid Covid-19 threat

Montreal/Sydney

AIRLINES and airports are recommending a layered approach to temporary safety measures as air travel restarts, warning that no single measure can mitigate all of the risks during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a briefing document.

The plan laid out by the International Air Transport Association (Iata) and Airports Council International (ACI) to reassure governments that it is safe for the public to fly includes contact tracing, temperature screening, social distancing, extra cleaning and wearing masks.

"Successfully restarting air passenger travel while restoring confidence in the safety of air travel are vital pre-requisites to enabling the global economy to recover from Covid-19," the groups said in the document. Iata and ACI said they were working with industry partners on a consistent global approach.

Many airlines and airports around the world are implementing measures such as requiring masks and leaving middle seats empty, in some cases due to government requirements.

The industry supports reliable Covid-19 testing, but at the moment virus and antibody tests are not a viable solution at airports and there is no confirmed evidence yet that antibodies confer immunity, said the document.

Should health-screening measures be necessary, it should be done long before passengers arrive at the airport, it said. Temperature checks on airport entry and exit are not likely to prove 100 per cent effective because they may miss mild cases and those in the incubation period, but the measures could play a useful role in reassuring passengers and deter travel in the case of suspected infections, according to Iata and ACI.

Social and physical distancing should be limited to the initial restart phase because the measures will cap airport and aircraft capacity once travel demand grows.

Security and health screenings should be mutually recognised when possible so that transfer passengers do not need to line up and be re-screened, leading to additional human contact.

"... We believe that an effective implementation on an outcome basis and layered approach, of the above-mentioned range of measures that are already possible, represents the most effective way of balancing risk mitigation with the need to unlock economies and to enable travel in the immediate term," the document said. REUTERS