China Airlines will begin testing the IATA Travel Pass (ITP) platform, which was launched by the International Air Transport Association to provide digital health verification, on August 30.
ITP will first be tested on planes returning to Taiwan from eight different cities (Los Angeles, Ontario, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver (Canada), Frankfurt (Germany), London (UK), and Singapore). This service will speed up check-in, decrease unnecessary human touch, and provide travelers more peace of mind during their flight.
China Airlines has collaborated with IATA to test ITP on flights to Taiwan from the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. The ITP study is described in the “Novel Coronavirus Service Information” section of the China Airlines website. Download the ITP app from the App Store or Google Play to get started. To begin, fill out the online registration form.
Then, travel to a certain hospital to take the PCR test. The hospital will add an electronic copy of the PCR test report to the IATA Travel Pass, which travellers can submit at check-in. Their medical information may then be easily checked by China Airlines ground workers, reducing contact and speeding up the entire check-in procedure.
Contactless services will be a major trend in the future of air travel. From April of this year, China Airlines collaborated with the Affinidi digital health verification platform to pilot digital health verification and simplify the check-in procedure on flights returning to Taiwan from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The new partnership with IATA would expand digital verification services to European and North American destinations.
The outcomes of this IATA trial run will be evaluated to determine whether the program can be expanded to cover other China Airlines flights. Concurrently, China Airlines is aggressively pursuing other foreign digital verification platforms to conduct additional testing in order to further optimize its own digital pandemic services. Negotiations with system operators are also underway to digitize health declarations and decrease physical interaction points.
China Airlines is also collaborating with Taiwan’s “Digital Proof of Vaccination Platform” to examine travelers’ COVID-19 vaccination and PCR testing records in order to deliver a safe and easy travel experience.
China Airlines expects its cold chain logistics business to more than double.
China Airlines completed many sorties conveying vaccines ordered by Taiwan, leveraging its CEIV Pharma certification and years of freight transport experience. China Airlines recently trans-shipped many COVID-19 cargo after successfully bidding for vaccination trans-shipments.
As global demand for freight services increased, the cold chain logistics industry more than doubled in size. The number of temperature-controlled containers transported by China Airlines increased by 220 percent year on year between January and July of this year, and the outlook remains optimistic.
China Airlines, being one of the world’s largest cargo carriers, was also the first carrier in Taiwan to acquire CEIV Pharma certification for pharmaceutical cold chain logistics. China Airline’s cargo team was picked to transfer the Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines back to Taiwan from Luxembourg, Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Bangkok (Thailand), Memphis (USA), and other sites.
The large network of China Airlines was also used to transship vaccines purchased by other countries to their final destinations via Taiwan, with some vaccine shipments previously transshipped to other Asian countries. China Airlines continues to play an important role in worldwide vaccine distribution and the shipment of COVID-19 vaccinations around the world.
China Airlines has maintained its lead in international air cargo, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA) statistics, with cargo volumes continuing to expand. China Airlines ascended into the world’s top five carriers by air cargo volume in 2020, transporting 1.55 million tonnes of cargo, a 12.8 percent increase over 2019. China Airlines handled 6,317 million freight tonne-kilometres (FRTK) in 2020, an increase of 18.4 percent over the previous year.
It was ranked tenth in the globe and experienced the greatest increase in cargo volume growth of any of the top ten carriers. A fleet of 21 freighter aircraft, comprising three newly launched 777 freighters and 18 existing 747 freighters, assisted China Airlines in strengthening its competitive position in the air cargo business.
China Airlines will continue to focus on its cargo operations in the second half of the year. The 21 freighters, as well as the belly holds of passenger planes, will be utilized to transport mail and goods. The demand for express freight, extra freighter services, and charter requirements will be prioritized. The European, North American, and Australian markets will soon reach their peak season.
As Western governments ease border restrictions and introduce new economic stimulus initiatives, demand is quite favorable, and the shift from ground to sea freight is gaining traction. As a result, the cost of flying cargo should stay high. Despite the significant hurdles provided by the epidemic, the commercial forecast for the second half of the year remains very strong.
Photo: China Airlines
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