The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that Kamil H. Al-Awadhi would be appointed IATA's Regional Vice President for Africa and Middle East (AME), effective March 1, 2021. Al-Awadhi succeeds Muhammad Albakri, who will become IATA's senior vice-president for customer, financial, and digital services (CFDS), also effective March 1, 2021. As previously announced, Albakri will replace Aleks Popovich in the CFDS role upon his retirement. Most recently, Al-Awadhi was CEO of Kuwait Airways, a responsibility he held from November 2018 through August 2020. That capped a 31-year career at Kuwait Airways during which his positions included Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer. Al-Awadhi has also held several positions in the areas of safety, security, quality management and enterprise resource planning. At IATA, Al-Awadhi will lead the association's activities across AME from its regional office in Amman, Jordan. He will report to the IATA Director General and CEO and join IATA's Strategic Leadership Team. "Muhammad has reinforced IATA's strong presence in the AME region. As he moves to take on the challenges of leading our CFDS activities, Muhammad will leave in place a strong team for the capable leadership of Kamil. "Kamil is an industry veteran who brings a tremendous depth of airline expertise and regional experience. These will be critical in leading IATA's activities in the AME region at this very challenging time. "As a former CEO, he knows what member airlines expect of IATA. And, I have no doubt that Kamil has the skills and determination to exceed those expectations as we aim to reconnect the world amid the coronavirus pandemic," said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA's Director General and CEO. "I look forward to getting started at IATA. Like all regions, AME will need a strong air transport industry to kick-start the economic recovery from COVID-19. The priority to revive aviation is clear and IATA is at the center of this effort. "There is no time to waste. We must help governments to re-open borders without quarantine and we need to ensure that the industry is ready to safely scale-up operations and implement the global standards that will keep passenger and crew safe during the pandemic and beyond," said Al-Awadhi. A national of Kuwait, Al-Awadhi holds an MBA in Aerospace Management from the Toulouse Business School and an Engineering degree in Aircraft Maintenance Management from Air Service Training (AST) in the UK. Key design elements of IATA travel pass The IATA unveiled key design elements of the IATA Travel Pass. IATA Travel Pass is a mobile app to help travelers easily and securely manage their travel in line with any government requirements for COVID-19 testing or vaccine information. "Testing is the immediate solution to safely re-open borders and re-connect people. And eventually this is likely to transition to vaccination requirements. In either case, a secure system to manage COVID-19 testing or vaccination information is critical. "The IATA Travel Pass is a solution that both travelers and governments can trust. And it is being built with data security, convenience and verification as top priorities," said De Juniac. The industry has been developing contactless travel processes as part of a One ID transformation program for several years. The IATA Travel Pass digital identity management module uses the well-developed principles of One ID (which are, in turn, based on ICAO standards). For the passenger this means that the IATA Travel Pass will also unlock the potential for convenient contactless travel processes from check-in to boarding. As such, while the need for COVID-19 information verification may eventually disappear when we overcome the pandemic, IATA Travel Pass, however, will remain as a bold step forward in the implementation of contactless travel. IATA is developing the IATA Travel Pass in four independent modules that can interact with each other. These modules will cover registries for regulatory entry requirements and labs/test centers, verified certificate issuance, digital identity and the possibility for passengers to share their tests results along their journey via their mobile device. Open standards enable the modules to be used as one solution or to complement capabilities being developed by other solutions providers. — SG
