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Thousands of aviation jobs will be lost this year if the Government delays for six weeks before adopting the EU’s digital Covid passport, pilots warned on Monday.
The European Parliament and Council reached final agreement last week on the EU Digital Covid Certificate, which will allow member state citizens move freely in the bloc from July 1st.
Captain Evan Cullen, president of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa), warned that the Government should adopt the certificate immediately on July 1st and not wait for the six weeks allowed by the EU before implementing it.
“They are going to destroy thousands of jobs if they wait until the middle of August,” he predicted.
Certificate
“There will be no recovery in 2021 and awful lot of people will, at best, be laid off until next March.”
The European Commission confirmed that from July 1st member state citizens would have a legal right to the certificate, allowing anyone who has been vaccinated, tested negative, or is immune to the virus, to travel freely in the EU.
A spokesman said that the commission wants member states to adopt the system as soon as possible after July 1st, but confirmed that they had up to six weeks to implement it.
Captain Cullen was speaking after Ialpa presented the Government with its plan to re-open the Republic to international travel and met officials and senior politicians to press its case.
He pointed out that summer was the time when airlines earned much of their revenues, and said the loss of a second holiday season would further damage an aviation sector already suffering from more than a year of lockdowns.
Ialpa proposes that the Government adopt the EU certificate from July 1st, as the technology needed is in place, and axe controversial hotel quarantines for travellers from the US and EU.
Around 4,000 jobs in airlines and airports have been lost or are under threat following almost 15 months of travel restricitions, which the industry maintains are the tigthtest in Europe.
The Government is due to announce its plans for re-opening travel this week. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said recently that it would be six weeks from June before the State can issue certificates.
At the weekend Government figures indicated that it would be August before the State put its system in place.
Agreement
Along with finalising agreement for the digital certificates, originally proposed in March, the EU has taken several other steps to open the bloc for travel this summer.
Last week, the EU agreed that it would allow in fully-jabbed visitors from outside the bloc, once they had been inoculated with vaccines approved by its medicines regulator.
The digital green certificates feature a public key showing that the holder is vaccinated, immune or has had a negative test. National directories hold the public keys, which are exchanged through a central EU system, allowing each member state to validate certificates issued by all others.
The commission central system, or gateway, will be ready on June 1st. Member states are due to begin connecting to it from that point, to allow the system to begin functioning EU-wide from July 1st.