International Airport Review
In order to avoid chaos at European airports during summer 2021, ACI Europe has called for governments to step up advance planning and work closer with the industry.
ACI Europe is therefore urging European governments to:
- Adopt and implement in a uniform manner the proposed revised EU Council Recommendation for travel within the European Union (EU), which was published by the European Commission (EC) on 31 May 2021.
- Ensure that they will be ready to issue common and interoperable EU digital COVID-19 certificates by 1 July 2021 at the latest and that, together with the European Commission, they also recognise both digital and manual COVID-19 certificates issued by EU neighbouring countries, as well as other third countries which are easing travel restrictions with Europe.
- Ensure that COVID-19 checks are not duplicated during the travel journey (integrating both departure and arrival processes at airports) and that these checks take place as early in the passenger process as possible (in particular, through online check-in)
- Deploy adequate State resources (staff) at airports to ensure that manual checks and border control processes do not delay travellers.
ACI Europe is also calling on the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to reconsider physical distancing requirements at airports based on the evolution of the epidemiological situation and the fact that an increasing proportion of travellers will be fully vaccinated.
