Dubai Airports is working on quickening the pace of getting PCR test results in just 3-4 hours to improve passenger traffic flow through its international airport.
“We will be setting a laboratory close to Terminal 2 where PCR tests will be processed and the results should be available in 3-4 hours,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports while speaking at the Arabian Travel Market 2021 Wednesday.
He further said Dubai has not passed on the burden of medical security for arriving passengers and also kept the medical aspect very un-intrusive that maintained the emirate at the top of the list of desirable places to come.
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Dubai Airports CEO said if biometric vaccine passports are up and running across the world, then it can be a possible substitute of PCR test over time. “We have already got the Covid-19 applications active, which show vaccination status of the people. If other countries are doing similar things, then all we need is to join it up. And through IATA, we will be able to join that.”
He, however, stressed that airports or airlines will not be invading privacy of the passengers through digital vaccination passports. “We don’t need to know your health status. We just need to be informed by the authority that is monitoring your health back in your country that you’re good to go.”
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Giving an example, he said vaccine passports would be like mobile wallets, which process payments without notifying the merchant how much money the user has in the bank. Similarly, the vaccine passports would simply be able to inform airlines and airports whether a passenger was safe to travel based on the information stored without disclosing it.
Griffiths also sounded hopeful that travel would be as seamless as pre-pandemic days, perhaps even “better” because Covid-19 has pushed a lot of things the aviation industry was grappling with for years, into action. (AW)
