Time to tear up the yellow passenger card, industry urges

“We believe that this can be funded budget neutral for the federal government, and the airports and the aviation sector will be investing significantly over the next few years into this process as well,” said TTF chief executive Margy Osmond.

The AAA had released a survey in January which showed 71 per cent of Australian travellers support digitising the IPC, while 78 per cent back “passportless” border processing.

According to the peak body, the PMC raised $1.4 billion in the 2025 financial year, with less than half of it going toward maintaining the border.

“Every single Australian that travels, and every single international visitor, in essence, pays the PMC. The passenger movement charge $70 as part of your airfare. You don’t see it, if you like, in terms of the transaction, but those funds go through to the Commonwealth, the federal government,” said AAA CEO Simon Westaway.

“Now we are asking, and will continue to collaborate with them to reinvest in the digitisation of the passenger arrivals card, but then also the broader processes around biometric travel and the seamless arrangements that we know we can have in place at our airports.

“Because we see it, as many Australians see when they travel globally. They see the different experiences around the world. We need to bring that to our country.”

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The industry is looking to raise the salience of the border ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, with Brisbane Airport CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff saying the groundwork needs to be laid today.

“We can’t wait until a couple of weeks or a couple of months before the Olympics to start investing in borders. We need to start today. It’s a stepped approach, starting with the passenger arrival card. That’s an easy thing to do. The technology exists,” he said.

“I think what we’re missing out on is more secure borders if we don’t invest in this. But even more importantly, we might miss out on growth … passengers might decide not to come to Australia because they’re queuing up. Airlines might decide not to fly because there’s no capacity for them.

“So ultimately, this is about the competitiveness of Australia, for airlines and for passengers. That’s the risk of not investing in the modernisation of the border, that we’re missing out on that.”

Over the past two years, the Australian Border Force has worked with Qantas on a trial of the Australia Digital Travel Declaration (ATD), which has been available as part of a trial with Brisbane and Sydney Airports on select flights from New Zealand.

Speaking to Sky News last year, a spokesperson said a full rollout to “all airports, all airlines and expanding into the cruise industry” was expected within the next five years.

“As the pilot is still underway, no formal review has been conducted,” the spokesperson said.

“However, anecdotal feedback from travellers has been overwhelmingly positive to date, including comments such as ‘It’s about time’ … ‘I wasn’t reaching for that pen’ and ‘It was awesome, I’m already out’.”

The scrapping of paper IPCs has been signalled for some time, with the Morrison government in 2021 announcing a $75 million deal with Accenture for the Digital Passenger Declaration.