Caribbean Airlines Partners with Ink Aviation to Debut Technology to Help Safeguard Borders

Caribbean Airlines is rolling out a health-focused border control solution from Ink Aviation to give governments across its network confidence that air travel can resume safely.

Caribbean Airlines will use the Ink Health Platform to seamlessly verify the COVID-19 health information of crew and passengers prior to departure. This platform will enable authorised clinics and labs to send test results or vaccination certificates directly to travellers via a smartphone app. Governments will be assured that the test result certificates of inbound passengers are issued and uploaded securely from verified labs.

Ink will facilitate the booking of RT-PCR tests and rapid tests such as RT-LAMP and Antigen for Caribbean Airlines across its network via a new integrated Passenger COVID-19 Test Booking Portal. The portal makes booking appointments and paying for tests within a 72-hour window easy and convenient for travellers.

Steve Azevedo, chief operations officer, Caribbean Airlines, says: “As travel guidelines continue to change, we need tools that are easy to implement and can be managed effortlessly to ensure our operations are optimized. We were impressed by Ink Aviation’s solutions and how they can support us through this Covid-19 pandemic. The app is user-friendly and will help our customers to confidently prepare for their journeys.

“The coordination of dependable regional and international Covid-19 testing of Caribbean Airlines' crew was a very challenging undertaking. Working with Ink, we were able to streamline the process into a fully managed service. We now have a single point of contact instead of multiple lines of communications to individual labs.”

Shawn Richards, CEO, Ink Aviation, says: “We were instrumental in helping Caribbean Airlines by co-opting proficient Covid-19 testing clinics and labs across their entire network, including the USA and the Caribbean. A key element of the Ink Health Platform is its ability to verify test and vaccine records from paper certificates or any QR code-based digital health wallets. After implementing our solution, labs securely upload test results avoiding forgery and the doctoring of results, as is occurring more frequently worldwide.”

“Uniquely, we are giving destination governments the means to ensure the authenticity of inbound passenger test and vaccination statuses as well as interactive inspection, acceptance or rejection before flights depart. The proliferation of more virulent strains of Covid-19 makes the ability to widen the health cordon around a country and move verification offshore more crucial than ever.”

The solution prioritises privacy by design as protected health information (PHI) is securely stored and only used for validating the passengers' health status during their journey. The platform conforms to GDPR and HIPAA data security principles and continues to rapidly evolve to meet the unprecedented challenge of working with changing border restrictions.

The Ink Health Platform provides a secure and trusted framework for any airline, airport, or immigration department to efficiently manage their borders and can be deployed within a matter of days.