WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. airline is committed to expanding the practice of requesting information from passengers on flights to the United States that public health officials can use to track contacts during the pandemic.
An industry trade group said Friday that carriers would deliver the information to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which could use it to contact passengers who were exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.
Delta and United have been doing it since December. On Friday, an industry trade group said American, Southwest, Alaska, JetBlue and Hawaiian will also ask passengers to make their names, phone numbers, email and physical addresses available to the CDC.
Airlines have long resisted government efforts to demand that they collect information about passengers and provide it to health agencies. They said they had no information about passengers buying tickets from other vendors, such as online travel agencies. They also argued that gathering the information and making it available to the government immediately would be very time consuming and would require costly upgrades to computer systems.
Airlines for America CEO Nicholas Calio said carriers hope their offer of voluntary information collection, along with testing of passengers entering the U.S., will lead the government to lift travel restrictions. international.
Although the applications are only voluntary, United Airlines said on Friday that since December most of its international customers have provided contact details.