LONDON – Airlines are struggling with a plague of passengers traveling with counterfeit Covid-19 health certificates.
The documents are often the Covid-19 test results required by many countries upon arrival. The operating body of the International Air Transport Association says it has detected false certificates in several countries, from France to Brazil, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Border control authorities and police forces have also reported arrests of people selling documents in the UK, Spain, Indonesia and Zimbabwe, among others.
The problem is that international flights hit more than domestic flights, which are currently not certified. Airlines that are more dependent on cross-border travel, especially those working in Europe, are becoming increasingly concerned as they look to summer, when they still hope demand will start to return.
The proliferation of fake health certificates exposes a logistical blind spot, as airlines are in a hurry to navigate to travel standards after the pandemic and reload their systems to facilitate compliance – and spur demand. Airlines say that their staff is not equipped to handle all the new health certificates, and that the problem will be exacerbated if some countries also start asking for vaccination certificates.
At Brussels Airlines, staff shared fake certificates they encountered – including one from an incident last week – to keep abreast of the techniques used by fraudsters.