ASKY, a leading Pan-African Airline set up at the initiative of West & Central African governments, has become the first airline with a hub in West Africa to join the Africa CDC Trusted Travel Alliance.

The Alliance is a major undertaking by the African Union to ensure that Africa has its own digital platform to support the continent’s world-leading vaccine and lab test passport systems.

The public-private partnership comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a new Public Health regime across the world of heightened vigilance, digital transparency and big data solutions to drive decision making.

The airline industry is a key player in this new dispensation as major aviation operators strive for contactless operations and an integrated safety-and-wellness experience.

ASKY’s strong developmental mission in Africa makes it a major stakeholder in the economic reopening agenda, while its passenger-first values position it as a public health champion.

This latest commitment to adopt and promote the Trusted Travel platform belongs to a long line of actions prioritising public good in partnership with critical Pan-African institutions, such as the African Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (Africa CDC), the African Union’s lead agency for continental health cooperation, and the PanaBIOS Consortium, which is mobilising cross-sectoral resources to support the African Union’s push for continental innovations.

Together, ASKY and the African Union community are driving forward an African-centered, world-class, and people-first program to deploy inclusive technology that will considerably reduce fraud in the health screening value chain, eliminate the burdensome costs of duplicate clinical testing, and ramp up data collection to support evidence-based decision-making on travel controls.

Improved quality in travel regulation management across Africa should help restore travel, tourism, trade, investment, cultural exchange and Pan-African integration to the positive and uplifting trajectory that underscores the Africa Rising narrative.

Mr. Ahadu Simachew, Chief Executive Officer of ASKY said “As the airline set up to promote Africa’s socioeconomic transformation, ASKY couldn’t be prouder of its support for and promotion of Africa’s leadership in developing and rolling out ahead of the rest of the world innovations that de-risks full reopening of societies and economies but one that does so without leaving any African behind.”

Speaking from the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, Africa CDC Director, Dr John Nkensagong, echoed Mr Ahadu by reaffirming “The complete commitment of the Africa CDC and the African Union Commission to embrace private sector champions like ASKY who not only voice strong support for the continental public good and integration but put their resources where their mouth is by helping deploy Pan-African solutions that make a real difference in the lives of real Africans.”