AirAsia achieves top seven stars for COVID-19 health ratings

AirAsia has been awarded the top seven stars for every airline in the Group for COVID-19 health ratings from the aviation safety experts at Airlineratings.com, following the implementation of numerous industry innovations over recent times to make flying more seamless, hygienic and contactless than ever before.

As outlined on the Airlineratings.com website, airlines are judged on seven criteria including website information on COVID-19 procedures, the wearing of face masks, personal protection equipment for the crew, modified meal service, regular deep cleaning of aircraft, personal sanitiser kits and social distancing onboard.

Airlineratings.com Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Thomas said, “It was concerning to find that many airlines did not appear to comply with the COVID-19 agreed standards for the protection of passengers and crew. That is changing and our team is reviewing compliance on a weekly basis. AirAsia was one of the first airlines to aggressively adopt all the recommendations. These are based on the criteria set out by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on regional and international safety guidelines.”

Thomas added, “It is a bit like the most dangerous part of the journey is the taxi, grab, gojek or Uber ride to the airport and so it is with COVID-19. You are in far more danger of getting COVID-19 en route to the airport than at the airport or on the plane.”

AirAsia Group COO Javed Malik said, “We thank the aviation experts at Airlineratings.com for their recognition of the priority we are putting on making sure that air travel is not only safe and affordable, but also more convenient, seamless and hygienic in this new world we now live in. Innovation has always been in our DNA and this is a great testament to all the hard work we have put in, working overtime during the downtime to continue to revolutionise air travel, reduce costs and enhance the guest experience.”

Earlier this week, AirAsia announced its newest innovation – Scan2Fly – an industry leading technology that can determine a passenger’s eligibility to fly before they arrive at the airport, including real time verification of relevant health documentation.

With Scan2Fly, AirAsia guests can scan and upload their medical certificates during the online self-check-in process. This includes the corresponding processing of any required documents to verify whether the passenger is approved to fly by the various authorities and possesses a valid COVID-19 Negative Certificate. Once the documents are uploaded, a report is provided automatically with real time approval/rejection status, including the reason for any rejection. The system has already gone live for a number of AirAsia flights from Malaysia’s KLIA2 Airport to/from Singapore and Surabaya with Jakarta joining soon and it will eventually be introduced to other AirAsia destinations, where valid travel documents will be required prior to travel.

At the same time, AirAsia also confirmed numerous other recent enhancements which are already in place including automated bag drop services, roving technology for temperature checks, and biometric facial recognition technology F.A.C.E.S. (Fast Airport Clearance Experience System) – the airline’s contactless facial recognition passenger processing system. The airline is also working to further deploy numerous other touchless experience systems such as digital identity management across the airline’s travel and finance ecosystem. As AirAsia’s digital transformation continues, there are many more innovations in development, which will be announced in 

due course.