Airlines stall Indians travelling with fake Covid-negative reports

Indian airlines are now accepting only reports that have QR codes embedded in them

The widespread use of fake Covid-19 negative reports by Indians travelling abroad have raised the alarm in the health authorities of other countries, forcing Indian airlines to accept only reports that have a QR code embedded in them.
 
Some Indian states that also require negative reports before allowing passengers in have also been concerned at this practice. The airlines have responded by asking the government to standardise all Covid-19 certificates.
 
Business Standard has learnt that the Ministry of Civil Aviation has written to the Ministry of Health saying that only those RT-PCR certificates which have a QR code linking them to their original test report will be considered as authentic by the airlines and airports.

 

Till now, airlines have been allowing test reports from the 634 labs approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research but the majority of them do not provide certificates embedded with a QR code. This makes it difficult for airlines to verify their authenticity.
 
Last week the Delhi government threatened to file FIRs against four airlines — IndiGo, SpiceJet, AirAsia India and Vistara — for not checking the RT-PCR negative reports of passengers flying into the capital from Maharashtra.
 
Earlier this month, the civil aviation authorities of the UAE held a call with airlines operating between India and the UAE. The topic of discussion was the flurry of Indian passengers arriving in the UAE who were testing positive upon arrival at airports despite carrying a negative certificate.

 
“The authorities have shifted the burden of checking certificates to airlines, in much the same way as carriers are requ­ired to check for proper travel visas before allowing passengers to fly. It is very easy to edit a PDF. With the number of such checking requirements high, it’s quite impossible for boarding staff to keep a tab on which certificate is genuine,” said an executive of a private airline.
 
The problem showed up starkly when more than a third of the passengers on a Vistara flight to Hong Kong tested positive, despite having a negative certificate. The next day, Hong Kong suspended all flights with India.

 
Almost all airlines are now asking passengers to have the QR code on test reports for destinations where a RT-PCR test is compulsory.
 
“The boarding agents are checking the RT-PCR reports with a QR code scanner. We had to deny boarding to some passengers due to this,” said an executive of India’s largest airline, IndiGo.
 
Genestrings Diagnostics Cen­tre, which runs the testing facility at Delhi Airport, is seeing a surge in the number of passengers who have negative certificates from leading hospitals without a QR code, says COO Chetan Kohli. And they are coming to get tested at the centre after being denied boarding.

 
“We are now seeing a number of flyers coming into our departures after being denied boarding. They were carrying negative reports from leading hospitals which didn’t have a QR code. When we started the operations at the airport, we had a QR code as we could foresee this problem of fake reports,” said Chetan Kohli, COO at Genestrings.
 
Kohli says it is primarily due to the lack of resources that laboratories have not invested in a system which gives a QR code with the report. The information system that leading diagnostic chains use are mostly outsourced to IT companies. “Currently for all, resources are stretched beyond the limit,” he said.

 
As the gigantic second wave of the pandemic rips through India, people across the country are facing delays in RT-PCR testing and in getting their reports. There is a shortage of testing kits and manpower. But  India does not have other scalable testing options.
 
“It’s also about necessity. No one actually thought it important to invest in it. Unfortunately, we live in a country where flouting the rules is rampant,” said Kohli.