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Singapore Airlines is partnering with Collinson to trial an online portal that will allow its customers to arrange a pre-departure COVID test, receive their results and have evidence of their results ahead of any flights they may need to take.
Collinson is probably better known to a lot of readers as the owner of Priority Pass (the worldwide airport lounge program) but it’s also a company that provides medical testing at various major airports around the world (e.g.it currently oversees most of the COVID tests that are performed London Heathrow).
By partnering with Collinson, the Singapore Airlines portal goes further than some of the other similar programs that we have seen announced (e.g the ‘Health Passport’ that American’ Airlines recently announced) in that it can be used by passengers to arrange and manage any pre-departure testing that they require (from a list of recognized testing facilities available on the online portal) and, because of how the portal is being integrated into existing systems, it will allow Singapore Airlines flyers to book their test appointments securely and seamlessly after making their flight bookings. Effectively, the pre-departure test booking will become an extension of the flight booking process.
In addition to allowing flyers to book and manage their pre-departure tests, the portal acts as a repository for the evidence that passengers will need to prove to the airline and the local authorities at their destination, that they have the paperwork required to travel, that they have been given a clean bill of health and, where appropriate, that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
The test results received into the portal will come with a QR code that permits airport check-in staff and Singapore immigration authorities to verify passenger information in compliance with the new digital health verification process that Singapore Airlines is piloting with the International Air Transport Association.
Under the pilot scheme, this pre-departure test service is currently available to Singapore Airlines and SilkAir passengers departing from Singapore, Jakarta, and Medan but there are plans to expand this service to more cities in the Singapore Airlines/SilkAir network if the pilot is successful.
Link to Collinson’s pre-departure testing page for Singapore.
SQ is always on top of everything — this latest step is impressive but not at all surprising.