Airlines now face a new battle to police the scourge of passengers traveling with fake and falsified Covid-19 health certificates.
According to WSJ.com, the International Air Transport Association industry body says it has begun tracking fake Covid-19 test result documents often required by many countries on arrival in multiple countries like France, Brazil, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Border control authorities and police forces have also reported arrests of people selling fake documents in the U.K., Spain, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, and others countries.
The problem is more wide-reaching across international flights than domestic ones, which typically don’t require any certification at the moment.
The rise of these fake health certificates exposes a logistical blind spot for airlines as they rush to navigate post-pandemic travel standards and retool their systems to ease compliance and anticipate demand.
Airlines are already stating that their staff isn’t equipped to handle and police all the new health certifications needed for travel, leaving experts to worry that the problem will be exacerbated once countries start to ask for vaccination documentation.
