Things are looking up for air travel. Studies have shown that flying is relatively safe.
A new app that tracks required testing protocols for travelers has just made a successful debut and American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) is working to create an air bridge that would open up a corridor between London and New York City.
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Drew Crawley, chief commercial officer of GBT, has been at the forefront of discussions with government entities, airlines and industry leaders to open this corridor and noted that one of the keys to restoring travel is that travelers need reassurance to begin flying again.
“The issue behind travel is the paralysis caused by the quarantines and border closures,” he said. “Travelers need to be confident to get back in the air, and that is something that we need to fix to give travelers confidence to travel safely.”
As the pandemic swept across the globe, government interventions have varied around the world but air travel has essentially been halted, and it is going to take a lot of unraveling to get it back to normal once again.
GBT is working with various entities to negotiate ways in which travelers can once again travel by air between the U.S. and the U.K.
“The genesis of the thought was to persuade governments to undertake a pilot [program] which would enable them to get confidence themselves,” said Crawley. “There is a solution to intelligently risk-managed travel rather than trying to manage the risk of travel to zero.”
The other thing that we noticed is that the travel industry is very fragmented and there were lots of different voices asking for slightly different things. We felt that GBT could play a role in getting airline partners because we have contact with all of them to coalesce around a single idea so that we have a single voice rather than multiple propositions from multiple stakeholders.
GBT is not the only one to think of using something like an air bridge but they wanted to make sure that the voice of the customer was represented and to ensure that government entities understood the importance of bringing back business travel and connecting these destinations.
“We thought that the voice of the customer needed to be heard in the government circles who are making the decisions,” said Crawley. “We worked with our partners, the big three airlines in the U.S. We then got IAG and Virgin in the U.K. and with the help of Heathrow Airport, we have a group that is aligned on a single idea.”
One of the biggest hurdles was overcoming 14-day quarantines.
“How do we exempt people from the quarantine in a way that would give people more comfort that the risk mitigation sufficient enough,” said Crawley.
They believe that an antigen test, 15-minute tests will mitigate a large enough chunk of people. It is privately funded and won’t burden the health system.
Crawley points out that, while people believe that quarantines mitigate risk, they aren’t actually as effective as they should be.
“A quarantine is self-policed by humans,” he said. “If you were able to get data, I would be 100 percent sure that 100 percent of people did not quarantine. We think that it’s more risky than having people do tests to board airplanes.”
It already looks like programs such as CommonPass are coming to fruition and are being launched successfully. United Airlines just hosted the first CommonPass test flight between the U.K. and the U.S. and also had success with Cathay Pacific.
“CommonPass could become the default platform globally to distribute the accredited information about the tests that have been made and matched against the health requirements of the individual countries,” he said. “It is a neat solution.”
Progress seems to be taking place quickly.
“I think there is a general keenness to find something that will work,” said Crawley. “In the U.K., I’d say that they are a little bit behind. What I predict will happen is probably the French and Germans will open up pilots between France and Germany and the U.S. before the U.K. does and probably the Irish will as well.”
However, the overall outlook is positive.
“We think that all the ingredients are there.”
