Australia’s Qantas Airlines has disclosed that “governments are going to insist” on vaccines for international travelers.

COVID-19 vaccines are seen as crucial to reviving the travel industry that saw worldwide passenger numbers fall 75.6% last year due to the pandemic.

Chief Executive Officer of Qantas Airways, Alan Joyce, stated that many governments are talking about vaccination as “a condition of entry”, BBC reports.

Even if they were not, Mr Joyce thinks the airline should enforce its own policy.

He said: “We have a duty of care to our passengers and to our crew, to say that everybody in that aircraft needs to be safe.”

The chief executive believes that would justify changing the terms and conditions on which tickets are booked.

And Qantas boss thinks passengers would be willing to accept the change. he said the vast majority of their customers think this is a great idea – 90% of people that they have surveyed think it should be a requirement for people to be vaccinated to travel internationally.

But some powerful voices, including the World Health Organisation, are among those who disagree. Its director of digital health and innovation, Bernardo Mariano, said: “We don’t approve the fact that a vaccinations passport should be a condition for travel.”

He added that a unified approach from governments would be needed to make such a change work.

Aviation is crucial for the global economy. The International Air Transport Association (Iata) estimates that it supports $1.8 trillion in global economic activity.

But government restrictions and fears of catching Covid-19 have led to an unprecedented fall in passenger numbers in an industry which carried 4.5 billion people in 2019.