Dubai airports chief expects vaccine passport to replace testing

Published 02 Jun,2021 via Arab News - Economy DUBAI - Vaccine passports are a long-term solution to reopening travel corridors, Dubai Airports chief Paul Griffiths said.

“Those digital systems should enable people to travel without having any problems at the airport because of course, testing works but it does require quite a lot of capacity for testing at the arrival airport,” he said in an interview with CNN.

He said a vaccine passport system would not require a physical check, making it more efficient.

“If we're going to move towards that personal mobility, we've all been missing for more than a year now, the vaccine passport, in my view, is the only way to get there,” Griffiths added.

The airport boss also predicted “a flood of demand” as soon as air travel returns, as “four billion people having been under lockdown over the last year are desperate to travel.”

The UAE has recently signed a travel corridor agreement with Italy to allow traffic between the two countries. In 2019, more than 2.2 million transit and direct journeys happened between the pair.

Griffiths is expecting the UAE to secure more quarantine-free travel corridors with the EU and the US to help coax passengers back.

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