Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague will strengthen passenger checks on arrivals from Wednesday, September 1. The necessary documents for entry into the Czech Republic will be jointly checked by airport staff, members of the Aliens Police and the Customs Administration. The airport is thus responding to the gradually increasing traffic and current state conditions for travel during a coronavirus pandemic, Prague Airport announced.
“We are coordinating the new model with representatives of the Ministry of Health and other security forces operating at the airport. We are also strengthening our staff capacity and equipment to speed up the entire check-in process. identified current conditions and all documents prepared,” said Jiří Kraus, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of Prague Airport.
The new procedure will be in front of the passport border check at both terminals and will focus on meeting all conditions of arrival, such as the completion of vaccination against covid-19, confirmation of disease or valid negative tests. The arrival form for trips to the Czech Republic will also be checked. At the same time, according to the airport, the new controls should increase the safety of passengers and airport staff.
The airport repeatedly encourages people to find out the travel rules in advance. Even before leaving their destination for Prague, they should have prepared and ideally printed all the necessary documents, arrival form and confirmation of infectivity, if they need it from the country.
Traffic at Prague Airport has been gradually growing in recent months. The airport handled over 605,000 passengers in July, which is 53 percent more than in the previous month. At the same time, it is a year-on-year increase of 140 percent. This also exceeded the original growth forecasts after the coronavirus crisis. However, despite the latest increase, air traffic remains well below pre-coronavirus pandemic numbers. Due to the coronavirus crisis last year, Prague Airport lost 79 percent of passengers compared to 2019 after years of record passenger numbers. It handled a total of 3.66 million, the lowest in 25 years.
Since last week, the Czech Republic has recognised vaccination against coronavirus in people from countries outside the European Union if their vaccine is approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use. The change in the recognition of vaccination certificates concerns, for example, the British, who are often vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in India. Before that, they had to be tested in the Czech Republic as standard.
According to forecasts, this measure is expected to increase interest in traveling to Prague.
Source: CTK
