The budget carrier said that it is strongly backing local government units (LGUs) for the removal of negative RT-PCR tests as travel requirements for incoming visitors who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
AirAsia Philippines has joined the calls for the scrapping of the RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction), in a bid to relax the travel requirements for fully vaccinated travelers.
The budget carrier said that it is strongly backing local government units (LGUs) calls for the removal of negative RT-PCR tests as travel requirements for incoming visitors who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
The airline added that majority of the local Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) still requires the submission of a negative RT-PCR test result before entry to their provinces as part of the measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.
It was during a dialogue recently with Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion that local government units such Palawan, Aklan, and Cebu "pushed for lesser restrictions and a more simplified entry requirement for fully vaccinated travelers."
According to AirAsia, the provincial government of Bohol meanwhile said that vaccine cards must be fully authenticated to allow mobility of vaccinated tourists.
"AirAsia is 100 percent behind our LGUs in calling for a more relaxed travel restriction and requirement for fully vaccinated individuals to lessen the cost of air travel. It is also one way to incentivize those who took the shot and encourage more to do the same," AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricky Isla said.
“It's Christmas season in the Philippines and after almost 2 years of not being able to travel due to the pandemic, Filipinos would surely want to spend time with family in the provinces or just simply enjoy the beach and the sun in the many leisure destinations in the country," Isla added.
The city government of Tacloban, through EO 2021-07-028 was among the first to successfully implement the use of vaccination cards in lieu of testing requirements for returning residents and tourists.
Other LGUs, the airline said, such as Dumaguete, Cotabato, Guimaras and Butuan followed suit in accepting tourists.
To date, Tacloban has vaccinated around 100,000 individuals, 54,437 of which received their full dose of the vaccine.
AirAsia is integrating the health travel icon on its Super App with the Department of Health's VaxCertPH which will make travel seamless for accepting LGUs. (See also: Going digital: 138k VaxCertPH certificates distributed, says DICT )
They are now in the final stages of integration and once completed, vaccination verification would be easy for LGUs who would accept fully vaccinated individuals.
AirAsia Philippines is also pushing for a shortened 5-day to zero quarantine period for fully vaccinated international travelers, which according to them, will entice more travelers from the United States and other European countries to reconsider their plans of visiting the Philippines.
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