Entrance? Passport? Add a Covid vaccination card to your list of essential travel documents

Across the United States, domestic travel is recovering, amid stabilizing or declining Covid-19 cases and a relatively rapid vaccination boost. This rebound has yet to appear on international travel, where a set of travel bans, quarantine rules and test requirements have hampered cross-border flights.

U.S. domestic carriers have increased scheduled capacity by more than 50 percent between September and March, according to aviation analysis firm Cirium. Meanwhile, the global capacity of all international routes has increased by just over 7%.

British Airways, Ryanair and other airlines that depend on international travel hope to increase ticket sales by capitalizing on nascent optimism about vaccines. The measure is not the kind of vaccination passport some governments and international agencies are considering creating to help unblock economies affected by a pandemic. Countries have reflected on documents that would allow vaccinated residents to visit bars and restaurants or go to the office or a sporting event.

Instead, it is a more modest effort to make it easier to store and display vaccination test records and Covid-19 for passengers who are considering taking advantage of some countries ’early reception of vaccinated travelers. The goal is to make the transition to post-pandemic flight as easy as possible, minimizing fears of being denied entry at the borders and limiting the amount of time a passenger needs to spend on check-in. the airport.

British Airways is also moving at a time when its domestic market, the UK, is benefiting from one of the fastest vaccine launches in the world. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, last month set out plans that could lead to the lifting of a ban on months of travel abroad in May. Airlines reported an increase in bookings following Johnson’s briefing. TUI AG

, the largest tour operator in Europe, recorded a 500% week-on-week increase among travel bookings in Turkey, Greece and Spain.

Cyprus and Greece, which have closed their borders intermittently to most tourists, have said they would start welcoming unrestricted British visitors if they prove they have received the two-dose vaccine. Both are reopening to UK visitors from early and mid-May, respectively. In Iceland, the government allows all vaccinated travelers to bypass Covid-19 health screening protocols.

On Tuesday, China said it was easing travel restrictions on vaccinated foreigners. Chinese embassies in the United States, Italy, India, the Philippines and elsewhere plan to offer “visa facilitation” to foreign applicants who can certify that they have been vaccinated. Travelers are still undergoing a negative Covid-19 test and quarantine, and there is another catch: the only vaccine that meets the requirements is the one made in China. They are hard to find in much of the West.

As part of its plan to alleviate post-pandemic travel, British Airways, the largest airline owned by International Consolidated Airlines Group A

—It will allow passengers to post Covid-19 inoculation tests and negative tests when making a reservation on their website. By reviewing the medical documentation that passengers have uploaded, British Airways can verify that the passenger’s documents are in order, in the same way that airlines already do for various visa requirements for passengers.

The first flights on which data can be sent are those from London to India. India does not need a vaccine to travel, but it does have a negative test for Covid-19.

“We are preparing for a significant return to international travel in the coming months,” said Sean Doyle, CEO of British Airways. “That means doing everything we can to simplify the journey for our customers.”

Ryanair, Europe’s largest for traffic, has developed a similar “travel wallet” tool on its website and mobile app. He said he was preparing for an increase in accumulated demand in May and June once the highest-risk populations in Europe had been vaccinated.

“Many Ryanair customers will take their first vacation in more than a year, following the new travel guidelines,” said Dara Brady, Ryanair’s head of marketing. The travel wallet will allow passengers to store all their Covid documents “in a place with no commotion or documentation to worry about.”

As vaccination programs around the world accelerate, airlines are trying other ways to make it easier for passengers to navigate the different international health regimes of Covid-19. Operators such as Singapore Airlines Ltd.

, Emirates Airline and Qatar Airways have been working with the International Air Transport Association, a commercial airline, to test the so-called Travel Pass system. The system, which includes a mobile app, aims to allow passengers to demonstrate Covid-19 vaccination and testing records, while identifying testing and vaccination requirements for different locations and local test centers accessible during the trip. .

U.S. carriers have also been turning to new applications to help passengers keep track of various travel requirements and upload test results, systems that could eventually be used to record vaccines.

Israel, ahead of most countries in its vaccination union, has implemented a vaccination passport that allows citizens to check their inoculations to visit hotels and gyms, a move the UK government has said it is also exploring. Israel’s borders are still effectively closed to foreign visitors.

The European Union plans to present a “digital green pass” for EU citizens on Wednesday that records the results of Covid-19 tests and vaccines to allow travel within the EU for both work and tourism. . Governments across the Mediterranean are pushing for the measure to be set in time to prevent a second lost summer season for its battered tourism industry.

—Alison Sider of Chicago contributed to this article.

Write to Benjamin Katz to [email protected]