In Pictures: Travelling this summer? Make sure you have these documents

As the world is moving past the pandemic, several countries have opened their borders for the fully vaccinated travellers.

Countries are easing travel restrictions, as the Omicron variant is milder compared to the previous variants of the virus. Most destinations in North America, Europe and the Middle East now only require passengers to show their vaccination certificates on arrival.

RT-PCR and rapid tests have been scrapped by most of the countries, provided the traveller is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

In Dubai, all inbound passengers, including those from the GCC, must fulfil one of the following: present a valid vaccination certificate reflecting that the passenger is fully vaccinated with a vaccine approved by the WHO or the UAE, and includes a QR code.

Or, the passenger should present a valid negative COVID-19 PCR test certificate issued within 48 hours after the sample was collected and issued by an approved health service provider with a QR code.

Or, present a valid medical certificate issued by the relevant authorities that the passenger has recovered from COVID 19 within one month from the date of recovery to the date of arrival.

In the UK, there are no longer any COVID-19 entry restrictions for travel to the country. This includes requirements for testing, vaccination, quarantine and entry forms.

In the US, only US citizens, US nationals, US lawful permanent residents, and immigrants will be accepted for travel to the country if unvaccinated.

A non-US citizen who is a non-immigrant will need to show proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before traveling by air to the US from a foreign country. Some categories of noncitizen, nonimmigrants are exempted from this requirement.

In India, all passengers must present a negative COVID-19 RT PCR report for a test taken within 72 hours before travel or a vaccination certificate showing that they were fully vaccinated at least 15 days before arrival. The vaccination certificate must be issued from India, UAE or from a list of specified countries.

Passengers are subject to random testing on arrival at the airport. Passengers selected for testing will submit the samples and be allowed to leave the airport. Those who test positive will be treated/isolated according to current guidelines.

In Pakistan, starting April 1, those fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will not require a negative PCR test result prior to their travel to the country.

Only non-vaccinated passengers wishing to travel to Pakistan will be required to possess a mandatory negative PCR test result conducted within the 72 hours prior to commencement of travel to Pakistan.

Fully vaccinated travellers won’t be required to undergo an RT-PCR test to visit Egypt, Turkey, Switzerland and France.

On Wednesday, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that it will stop developing its Travel Pass digital health platform as COVID-19 restrictions have dropped worldwide.

“We continue to support current customers using the app. However, as COVID-19 restrictions are being rapidly lifted, the demand for sophisticated digital health wallets such as IATA Travel Pass is reducing,” a spokesperson for the industry body said. “As such, we are not planning to develop the product beyond its current capabilities,”