PRM Track & Trace - part of the "restart" aviation preparations

Recent publications from IATA and EASA have provided welcome initial guidelines to be followed as we move towards restarting aviation operations.

The industry preparation so far seems to focus on preventative measures such as physical barriers, social distancing, managing passenger flow etc. As Governments around the world have made clear, these preventative measures need to be backed up by a rigorous Track & Trace process in the event of a person testing positive for Covid-19.

On the aircraft, this will be relatively simple now with most airlines having specified seating for each passenger - hands up those who miss the "free seating" scrum? We can therefore quickly identify who sat close to whom on a flight.

On the ground, things can get more complex as airport, airline and passenger services staff will come into contact with many passengers from multiple flights but there is one group of passengers to whom we must pay special attention.

Passengers of Reduced Mobility (PRM's) are in an unenviable position where, in addition to the normal airport risks, their journey through an airport frequently involves them coming into close proximity with assistance staff and specialist equipment. Some of these passengers will also be classed as vulnerable due to other underlying conditions and so we, as an industry, need to be even more vigilant in our record keeping when they travel with us.

Airports and their PRM Service Providers need to be putting processes in place now to ensure that in the event of being notified of a positive test for passenger or staff member, they have the data to quickly:

- identify which passengers came into contact with which staff members
- identify which passengers/staff utilised which equipment and vehicles

For its customers, Able2fly has already introduced its PRM Track & Trace facility which allows the secure recording of passenger journey data and a simple set of reports which can be run in the event of a positive test notification - see https://bit.ly/2ZxnEKx

For airports using other PRM Management systems, their IT providers will almost certainly be developing their own version of something similar.

But for airports who don't currently have access to these systems, they need to be urgently thinking about:

- how they will reliably collect the data regarding passenger/staff member/equipment
- how easily and quickly they could respond in the case of a positive test notification

If the prospect of trying to do all this manually (or more usually in a spreadsheet) seems daunting, why not get in touch with us ( info@able2fly.com ).
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Whilst our preference would be our PRM Track & Trace solution, we realise there's more than one way past a problem.

We're not averse to a good spreadsheet and we would be happy to discuss how we do it. Hopefully we can help you find a solution appropriate for your situation.

Let's not leave PRM's at the bottom of the list of our "restart" preparations.

Martin Quinn
Able2fly Ltd
Clavering House
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE1 3NG

We are committed to finding simple cost effective solutions to operational problels in the accessible travel field - primarily in aviation but also expanding to rail and cruise markets.

This release was published on openPR.