Caribbean Airlines Now Offering Service Of Booking And Paying For COVID-19 Tests

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (Thursday, April1, 2021) — Caribbean Airlines announced, last Friday, that “keeping abreast of innovations and services to facilitate a safe travel environment for its customers”, it is now offering passengers the convenience of booking and paying for COVID-19 tests, via the airline’s website, up to “seven days in advance, but no less than 48 hours, prior to their flight departure date”.

The venerable airline, in partnership with Ink Aviation, can facilitate COVID-19 test bookings for its customers, using a new integrated Passenger Covid-19 Test Booking Portal, which it said, in a media release, “makes booking appointments and paying for tests easy and convenient”.

The platform integrates with multiple stakeholders — including medical establishments, airlines, airports and governments — to securely validate and share passenger health credentials, such as test results and vaccines, enabling “the passenger journey to be simple, fast and safe, with all steps connected together”.

“This is a major step for Caribbean Airlines, to support countries to safely reopen their borders, while preventing the importation of COVID-19 cases. The platform is compatible with all digital and paper COVID-19 test certificates, including results from RT-PCR, LAMP and Antigen tests,” Steve Azevedo, Caribbean Airlines Chief Operations Officer (COO), noted.

The COO elaborated: “The innovative solution allows passengers to verify their health credentials, using several identification options. And it works, seamlessly, with any departure control system (DCS), immigration systems and all self-sovereign digital health passports. In addition, an inbuilt declaration form digitizes and unifies the travel details submitted by the passenger with advanced passenger information (APIS)”.

Using the airline’s Passenger COVID-19 Test Booking portal, caribbeanairlines.health.ink, customers can input their booking reference code, and a list of approved testing labs, along with available appointment dates and times, will appear for selection.

The link will only display approved testing labs in the country, from which the customer’s flight originates. Payment is required, immediately after securing the appointment with the selected lab, and the cost of the test will vary, based on the country and lab, facilitating the test.

“Customers are advised to choose appointment dates that align with the specific entry protocols for the destination, to which they are travelling. For example, some countries require that PCR tests be done within 72 hours of travel, while others accept PCR tests done within 7 days of travel,” the release advised.

Passengers will be able to verify the specific entry requirements and other important travel information for their intended destination, using the Caribbean Airlines Sherpa Tool at travelguidelines.caribbean-airlines.com/

Additionally, upon completion of their test appointment, customers will be invited to download the Ink Mobile App (Tento Wallet), via the Apple App or Google Play Store.

This app will act as a digital health passport, providing a touch-less experience, where the labs can securely upload customer’s test results, which can be presented at the airport, when checking-in.

Caribbean Airlines will verify the results, via the QR code from the Ink Mobile App downloaded on their smart-phone.