Making the year of facilitation matter

“The transformative potential of facilitation is huge,” says Karine Boulet Gaudreault. IATA’s Senior Manager, Passenger Facilitation. “This year is an opportunity to get all stakeholders involved to drive the operational efficiencies that can be achieved through true modernization and not simply digitizing legacy, manual processes.”

Every day, airlines process hundreds of thousands of documents, from passports to health credentials. Airlines verify these are valid and that they belong to the passengers, and that their passengers comply with the entry rules of the country to which they are travelling. Any mistake that means a passenger is denied entry when arriving at the destination is extremely costly to the airline.

Although airline staff are well versed in this process and have IATA’s Timatic products to assist, it is a complex area with new rules coming into force on a regular basis.

Moreover, many requirements are unique to a particular jurisdiction, such as specifying a length of validity for a passport, a requirement for blank passport pages, the need for a return ticket, or proof of accommodation.

“Harmonization of these requirements is crucial for improving the customer experience,” says Boulet. “IATA constantly lobbies governments to ensure they fulfil their international obligations and the international framework provided by ICAO is followed.”

Nevertheless, much work remains to be done on standardization. “Think of electronic visas, which work well for passengers that can apply online,” says Louise Cole, IATA’s Head, Customer Experience and Facilitation. “But the verification by airlines is extremely challenging in the absence of an interactive Advance Passenger System due to lack of standardization of the proof. Moreover, on a multi-leg journey you might not have the proof required because the data isn’t shared along the line.

“Or remember during the pandemic when passengers were asked to present a stamped, signed…