Doubt over summer vax scheme Ian Taylor


Digital vaccination certificates may not be ready for the summer restart of travel despite transport secretary Grant Shapps confirming the government taskforce which reports on April 12 “will introduce travel certification”. Shapps told MPs last week


the Global Travel Taskforce “will introduce travel certification by using schemes such as Iata’s Travel Pass or CommonPass”. Singapore Airlines began the first full trial of the Travel Pass mobile app on flights to and from London this week. However, an industry source


warned: “We’re not going to see a massive rollout of digital solutions for


this summer. There is going to be a lot of paper still.” A leading industry lawyer also


confirmed privacy and personal data remain “the biggest issue” to resolve in developing digital certificates. Farina Azam, partner at Deloitte


Legal, said: “Vaccination status is medical information so it’s sensitive personal data. The issue if it’s being transferred between numerous bodies [will be] is the data being transferred in a legally compliant way and not used for anything other than allowing travel?” Speaking at Travel Weekly’s


Future of Travel Spring Forum, Azam said: “There is also [potential] discrimination of people who don’t get vaccinated. There are various reasons


Experts tip rise in demand for hybrid working practices


Lee Hayhurst


Travel firms should expect hybrid working practices to become the norm post-pandemic, particularly as younger generations expect more flexibility from employers. A Future of Travel session on


staffing and operations heard firms will have to assess the implications for their businesses and duty-of-care obligations to remote workers. Companies are expected to


face more official flexible working requests from employees, who will use the experience of the past year to


6 18 MARCH 2021


show working from home is feasible. Gail Kenny, co-owner of Gail


Kenny Executive Recruitment, said a recent YouGov poll found two-thirds of people will seek some form of remote working post-pandemic. “Many people will want that


hybrid of being able to work three days in the office and two days at home, whether it’s on rotation or however it’s set up,” she said. Kenny said accommodating


this change could be particularly challenging for smaller firms, but it was a trend among younger workers that the pandemic would accelerate.


We’re not going to see a massive rollout of digital solutions for this summer. There is going to be a lot of paper still


why people might not get vaccinated. It might be age, a health reason or their beliefs, all of which potentially are protected characteristics. “A combined system of a vaccine


passport and a negative test may be how you balance out potential discrimination.” Azam noted a system could


probably be developed quickly, but said: “We don’t want a situation


where it moves quickly and then there are concerns around privacy and data sharing. “You don’t want customers to lose


confidence in the system.” Abta director of membership


and financial services John de Vial told the forum: “These are difficult issues.” But he said: “There are huge incentives on all stakeholders to work this out, and for volume destinations, that will happen quickly. “I imagine there will be a choice


– a route without vaccination. There will probably be extra burdens with that around quarantine and testing, and there may be costs linked to that. But if there is a choice that allows people to travel more easily, that has to be a good thing.”


Ami Naru


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Lee Hayhurst


Mary Wilson


Gail Kenny “They want flexibility in the


workplace and they place massive value on that,” she said. Mary Wilson, chief people officer


at Gold Medal parent dnata Travel, agreed hybrid working is likely to become more prevalent, particularly among younger workers and in sectors such as IT. “Having gone through the past year, working from home, people will say it has proved the concept can work,” she said. Ami Naru, Travlaw head of


employment, said firms do not necessarily have to change their contracts or employment policies to


adapt to hybrid working. But she said there must be an acknowledgement that the place of work implied in contracts has changed. “There will be more requests


to work from home, whether on a permanent or full-time basis,” she said. “Employers and employees will have to have an open dialogue and reach agreement.”


Watch the Future of Travel operations and staffing session at: go.travel weekly.co.uk/SpringForum1


travelweekly.co.uk


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