WASHINGTON (AP) – The US aviation industry pledges to expand the practice of asking passengers of flights to the United States for information that public health officials can use to track contacts during the pandemic.
An industry association said on Friday that the airlines would hand the information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which could use it to contact passengers who may be exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.
Delta and United have been doing this since December. On Friday, an industry group said American, Southwest, Alaska, JetBlue and Hawaiian will also ask passengers to make their name, phone numbers, email, and physical addresses available to the CDC.
The airlines had long resisted government efforts to require them to collect passenger information and provide it to health authorities. They said they do not have the information on passengers purchasing tickets from other sellers such as online travel agents. They also argued that gathering the information and making it immediately available to the government would be time consuming and would require expensive computer system upgrades.
The CEO of the Airlines for America trade group Nicholas Calio said airlines hope their offer of voluntary intelligence gathering, along with testing of passengers entering the US, will lead the government to lift restrictions on international travel.
While the requests are only voluntary, United Airlines said on Friday that since December, most of its international customers have provided contact information.