GE Aviation Launches Health Application ID for the Aviation Industry

Applying blockchain technology for safe airline travel and to restore passenger confidence

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE Aviation is offering a new health credential application, Health Application ID, for the aviation industry to address COVID-19 related safety concerns. The solution focuses on three important areas:

• Employee Control: screening workers to facilitate a safe return to the workplace
• Passenger Control: screening passengers for responsible and safe aircraft occupancy
• Object Control: clearing objects on aircraft as disinfected to improve customer trust and confidence

The solution, enabled by Microsoft Azure, is available now and demonstrations are underway with airlines, airports and industry groups.

“This application addresses an urgent need in our industry to help ensure airline and airport workers have been screened for COVID-19 and that their fellow passengers have been checked,” said Andrew Coleman, chief commercial officer of GE Aviation’s Digital Group. “We need to do everything we can to instill trust and confidence in the traveling public and get the world back to work and flying again”.

The solution enables airlines, airports and related transportation operation areas to set test result protocols and check the compliance to new COVID-19 medical screening for employees and passengers. Personal information and test results are protected by encryption and access is solely controlled by designated airline employees and passengers. Additionally, the offering is flexible and medical-test agnostic, which enables airlines to adapt as regulation and science evolves. By providing this application to airlines, more people can start to fly, and the industry can start to rebuild.

This application uses the Microsoft Azure Blockchain Service and related technologies that create a protocol to embed passenger identity information, ticket information, and medical screening results into the boarding process in a highly secure environment.

"We were able to quickly make this available with the help of great partners and our willingness to work across industries to apply best practices to this problem,” said David Havera, GM of GE Aviation’s blockchain solutions. “We are combining GE Aviation’s data and analytics domain expertise with the scale and secure capabilities of Microsoft Azure along with TE-FOOD’s blockchain technology and best practices from the food industry to create a product that brings the best scalable solution to the aviation industry. This offering gives control to the passengers by allowing them to view the cleaning history of the aircraft. Airlines gain more control by being able to record events as they occur, which enables pandemic containment and auditable records.”

Perhaps equally as innovative as the offering itself is how GE launched it. “Our digital group has used the concept of revenue share partners from our parent aviation company. This allows us to share the risk/reward with partners and take advantage of best practices across industries,” said Scott Ridge, the global head of Partners and Alliances. “This is an outcome of a partner-enabled incubation model. Collaboration is the key to getting the world started up again. Over the coming months this model will continue to strengthen this offering by using the full power of GE and additional partners.”

About GE Aviation

GE Aviation, an operating unit of GE (NYSE: GE), is a world-leading provider of commercial and military jet engines, avionics, digital solutions and electrical power systems for aircraft. GE is the world's Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.geaviation.com/digital