Kenya Airways implements digital 'Covid' travel pass

 Kenya Airways has partnered with the African Union and the Africa Centre For Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to become one of the first airlines in Africa to implement the Trusted Travel Pass.

This is a digital platform that helps passengers easily and securely manage their international travel in line with any government requirements for Covid-19 testing and vaccine information. 

The Trusted Travel Pass enables Kenya Airways passengers to verify compliance easily and securely to Covid-19 test or vaccine travel requirements to their destination of choice.

They will also be able to share the test and vaccination certificates with authorities and airlines to facilitate travel through the Trusted Testing Code (TT Code), which shows that the test was done in an approved trusted lab.

Kenya Airways believes in keeping the health and safety of our travelers as a topmost priority and is proud to be one of the leading airlines in Africa to facilitate a one-stop-secure travel shop to restore customer confidence to fly once more

KQ Acting Chief Commercial Officer Julius Thairu

Additionally, the TT Code is used as evidence of the test to generate a Travel Code (TC) for international travel.

TT Code and TC are standard travel clearance requirements for international travel in a health emergency.

Acting Chief Commercial Officer Julius Thairu said:“Kenya Airways believes in keeping the health and safety of our travelers as a topmost priority and is proud to be one of the leading airlines in Africa to facilitate a one-stop-secure travel shop to restore customer confidence to fly once more."

"We are incredibly proud to be part of AU and Africa CDC journey ensuring hassle-free and compliant travel across the world, while preventing cross border spread of Covid-19 infection,” Thairu added.

Kenya Airways as an AU and Africa CDC partner will also bring invaluable input and feedback to improve the Trusted Travel Pass programme making the groundbreaking step in enabling safe international travel during the pandemic as convenient as possible, he said, giving people the boost of confidence that they are meeting all Covid-19 entry requirements by governments.

John Nkengasong, Director of the African Union Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Addis Ababa said: "The Africa We Want" shall only be achieved by such bold engagement of business with the policy and political agenda of the continental Union." 

The Trusted Travel platform provides an extensive suite of technologies that will enable Kenya Airways to verify the authenticity of test results and vaccine certificates issued by other countries.

Without such system, the proliferation of user-tampered and fake test and vaccine certificates will undermine efforts to minimize cross-border transmission while allowing trans-border economic activities to take place.  

The platform is secured and safe and has been developed using international standards of cybersecurity and data protection protocols. 

Kenya Airways is a member of the Sky Team Alliance, and has been flying to 41destinations worldwide pre-Covid, 34 of which are in Africa, carrying over four million passengers annually.

In 2020 KQ was named Africa’s leading airline by the World Travel Awards.

It continues to modernize its fleet with its 32 aircraft being some of the youngest in Africa.

This includes its flagship B787 Dreamliner aircraft. 

It recently converted its Boeing 787 into a freighter to increase its cargo handling capacity.