On Aug. 10, 2006,
authorities in the United Kingdom arrested 21 people thought to be
plotting an imminent attack on aircraft using homemade bombs
disguised as, among other things, drink bottles. As a result, all
liquids -- and any substances soft enough to be gelatinous -- were
promptly banned from aircraft. Though the ban was somewhat relaxed
in September, the arrests brought forth new fears and
frustration.
For the meetings industry, it is time
to ask: Could travel increasingly lose its luster for attendees
because of terrorism fears and confusing security headaches? Will
conventions and trade shows suffer reduced attendance? What can be
done to mitigate flyers’ fear and make travel less onerous?
Riskier skies?
Despite all the enhancements to
aviation security at airports after 9/11 -- more air marshals,
stricter passenger screening against watch lists, scanning of
checked luggage, barred cockpit doors -- threats clearly remain to
commercial flights, prime targets for terrorists. Some people feel
renewed anxiety about taking to the skies since Aug. 10. And
security woes have
already pinched a major meetings industry partner: the airlines
themselves.
On Sept. 1, for example, Continental
Airlines reported that “August 2006 year-over-year consolidated and
mainline passenger revenue per available seat mile were negatively
impacted by approximately 1.5 points due to the elevated security
concerns during the month.”
However, airlines bounced back during
the month that followed, seeing higher passenger traffic throughout
September despite the changes in rules concerning carry-on luggage.
Reuters reported on Oct. 4 that Continental, United and Southwest
all saw increases in year-over-year passenger numbers, even though
planes were less crowded due to an increase in capacity over
2005.
The seesawing passenger traffic numbers
are reflective of flyers’ attitudes about traveling via jetliner:
According to an AP-AOL poll of 1,000 Americans conducted in late
September, 79 percent of respondents said the TSA’s changing rules
regarding gels and liquids in carry-on luggage made no difference
in their feelings about the overall safety of air travel. While 64
percent said the rules about gels and liquids were easy to
understand, 32 percent found them confusing.
Moreover, the poll found that while 41
percent of Americans believe security is consistent from airport to
airport, more (44 percent) disagree. Lastly, the study had definite
good news for the travel industry and meetings trade: 43 percent of
Americans affirm that today air travel is “very safe,” a higher
number than in earlier polls taken in the years since the Sept. 11
attacks.
Meetings impact
Planners have not noticed any drop-off
in the eagerness of attendees to fly to face-to-face events.
“I have not heard of attendance being
affected by fears over aviation security,” says Amy Ledoux, CMP,
CAE, vice president of meetings and expositions with ASAE & The
Center for Association Leadership, based in Washington, D.C.
“Especially with our association, a lot of our membership is very
well traveled. Flying is a way of life, and everybody is just
dealing with it.”
Nonetheless, to keep attendees flying
to events, travel security experts suggest keeping them well
informed. “Looking at statistics, one should feel good about the
safety of air travel,” says Randy Spivey, director of the Safe
Travel Institute, a firm based in Spokane, Wash., that works with
companies like Wal-Mart and groups like the Association of
Corporate Travel Executives to educate employees and members about
travel risks. “Our stance is that air safety is still very high.
The reality is that you’re much more likely to deal with a
pickpocket or purse snatcher than a terrorist attack.”
Planners can provide attendees with
tips for safe travel and links to news and information that will
minimize anxiety (see “Be Prepared,” right).
“Can’t we as event organizers help
inform our attendees so we can take a little fear away?” asks
Ledoux. “We put on our website very specific information in regard
to transportation, so there are no surprises. I think people get
nervous when they are not in the know. It’s our job as meeting
organizers to make sure we are communicating and helping prepare
those traveling to our meetings.”
Hassle factor
While realistic information about the
risks of terror attacks upon aviation can reassure flyers,
ever-tightening airport security inevitably brings frustration and
causes delay.
An airline industry analysis recently
published by the Business Travel Coalition reports that longer
security lines have been a factor encouraging “high-yield business
travelers to seek alternatives to air travel, such as the
automobile, in short-haul markets, and travel substitutes, such as
videoconferencing, in long-haul markets.”
“Every time we overlay a new level of
inconvenience, it has an incremental dampening effect on demand,
but this is the first time that the restriction disproportionately
impacted women,” notes BTC’s Kevin Mitchell in reference to
restrictions on gels and other liquid derivatives. “I traveled to
Chicago in early September. Now, I wasn’t going to complain that
the hotel didn’t have my Old Spice. [But women are] much more brand
loyal. I talked last week with a female business traveler, and it
took her five stores to find the right product.”
What’s worse: With more bags being
checked in the wake of the August liquid bans, incidents of lost
baggage rose. In October, the Department of Transportation reported
that the top 20 airlines’ mishandled bag rate jumped to 8.1 per
1,000 passengers in August 2006 from 6.4 over the same month in
2005.
Security snafus
For all the inconvenience flyers have
faced, it seems reasonable to expect real security enhancements in
return. But as it turns out, many post-9/11 programs initiated to
make air travel safer have encountered delays, criticism or other
setbacks. For example, a December 2005 report card issued by the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
(generally referred to as the 9/11 Commission) gave a grade of F to
the nation’s efforts at airline passenger prescreening. The panel
gave a D grade for checked bag and cargo screening, and a C was
meted out to the airlines’ passenger explosive-screening efforts.
Finally, the 9/11 Commission gave the overall national strategy for
transportation security a C-minus grade.
According to the TSA’s security
strategy, “The nature of the current threat has changed since Sept.
11, 2001. The deployment of measures like hardened cockpit doors,
the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program, a vastly expanded Federal
Air Marshal Program and others has greatly reduced the risk of an
attack similar to those of Sept. 11. Today, explosives pose the
greatest risk to our transportation systems.”
However, this September, less than a
month after the alleged U.K. airline bomb plot was revealed,
The New York Times reported the TSA had suspended
deployment of the only airport screening device that automatically
tests passengers for explosives. About 95 “trace portal detection
machines,” commonly called “puffers,” will have been deployed in 81
airports by the close of 2006 -- far fewer than the 350 originally
promised by the end of the year. (Still, the TSA says more than
31,000 security personnel have received some form of special
training to recognize the presence of “IEDs,” or improvised
explosive devices, in baggage.)
A CONGRESSIONAL WATCHDOG SPEAKS OUT
In an exclusive interview withM&C,seven-term U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla., right) talks about the current state of the nation’s aviation security system in light of the alleged transatlantic bombing plot foiled by British authorities in August. Since 2001, Mica has served as chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee under the jurisdiction of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that oversees the Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. Mica wrote the legislation that created the TSA following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.M&C:Why has there been a slowdown in the deployment of the explosive-detecting “puffer” machines at airports?Mica: They’re trying to upgrade some of the machines to make certain they have some of the capability to address the threat we’re under.
M&C: Word is the machines wouldn’t have detected the kind of liquid explosives meant to be used in the plot described by British authorities.Mica: That’s a technical question. I know they’re trying to upgrade them to deal with threats we’re under Ñ and also looking at backscatter X-ray machines [devices capable of seeing through people’s clothes to reveal weapons, explosives and banned items] and RF millimeter wave technology [use of radio frequencies to detect dense objects under clothing while revealing less of the human body than backscatter X-rays]. I think TSA will be announcing as soon as possible some other technology that will be deployed.
I’m in the process of recommending other changes that deal with passenger screening, and some of those changes will also be announced soon. I think Mr. Hawley [Kip Hawley, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for the TSA] has announced 12 locations where we have trained personnel in behavior analysis, and that program appears to be very successful.
M&C: You’ve expressed frustration with the current state of screening baggage for explosives. How bad is it?Mica: That’s a disaster. We have 16,800 of 45,000 TSA screeners hand-checking
or processing checked baggage in a primitive fashion. Only three of our 29 largest airports have fully integrated, in-line high technology. That’s unacceptable.
M&C: It seems that much of our national strategy is reactive. After 9/11, we banned little knives. After the shoe bomber, we took off our shoes. Now, with the liquid bomb plot, we ban liquids. What risks should now take priority?Mica: You need to design a system that deals with a host of threats and relies more on technology than manpower, then retrain your manpower with very specific human security tasks. I’m trying to come up with a whole new procedure for screening passengers and their hand-
carried baggage, and we need to move to a high-tech bag check procedure.
M&C: What are the biggest risks now?Mica: The two biggest security threats we’re facing are, first, explosives being carried onboard an aircraft. The second is shoulder-launched missiles. [Terrorists] probably will take down aircraft by either one of those means.
M&C: Are you pleased that it looks like the Registered Traveler program is finally moving ahead?Mica: The current program is lacking in that we do not have protocols established for biometric standards for iris, fingerprint or facial recognition. Nor do we have protocols for preserving that information and comparing it to valid watch lists. Nor do we have the protocols for reading equipment or interoperable systems. Unfortunately, they’re proliferating a system that will soon be obsolete.
M&C: What can travelers and travel industry professionals do to influence the debate on aviation security?Mica: Encourage policy-makers to change our labor-intensive system to a high-tech security screening system, with better utilization of personnel. We’re spending $5.4 billion on a system that is in large part a mirage. We’re expanding a so-called trusted traveler program that is obsolete. -- B.M.L.
Prescreening delayed
In July 2004, the TSA scrapped CAPPS
II -- the Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System -- which
was designed to check airline passenger names against terrorist
watch lists, a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. The CAPPS II
program, which had been criticized for failing to account for
personal privacy and for costs to the airlines, was replaced by a
program known as Secure Flight.
But that electronic screening program,
too, has run into criticism and delays. Early in 2006, the TSA
halted the development of Secure Flight to reassess, or
“rebaseline,” the program.
Even with functional terrorist
watch-list screening in place, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), for
one, has pointed out that known terrorists could board U.S.
aircraft using computer-altered boarding passes, since photo IDs
are not now matched to boarding passes at the gate itself.
“It’s unbelievable that after over
three years of recalibrating aviation and airport security so that
we can keep a close eye on suspicious individuals, this enormous
hole remains in the system. It has rendered the terrorist watch
list nearly useless,” said Schumer in a 2005 statement. “In this
post-9/11 era, the terrorists will find our weakest link, and we
can’t leave any stone unturned.”
Registered
Traveler
A potential ray of hope for beleaguered
business travelers and meeting attendees: The long-delayed
Registered Traveler program, which provides private airport
security lanes for paying, prescreened customers, appears to be
moving forward.
On Sept. 14, Clear, the only RT vendor
with operational security lanes, announced that the TSA had
authorized the first step to expanding the program nationally,
allowing the company to accept advance enrollments at British
Airways’ Terminal 7 in New York City’s JFK International Airport
and in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and San Jose, Calif. And the
program will continue at Orlando International Airport, where Clear
has enrolled 27,000 members since the pilot program began there in
July 2005.
“We expect to begin in-person
enrollments at these new airports by mid-October and to have our
lanes operating at the security checkpoints about three weeks after
that,” Clear CEO Steven Brill said in a statement. “TSA is 99
percent of the way there in completing the final approvals related
to rules and processes that have long since been decided on.”
Boosters say Registered Traveler will
make for shorter lines for the general public, while providing a
predictable and short wait time for RT enrollees. “If Registered
Traveler can be affordable and gain critical mass, it can have the
same impact as E-ZPass in the Northeast,” says the BTC’s Mitchell.
“It increases throughput and solves a huge problem that’s out
there, which is inconsistency.”
However, critics such as Rep. John Mica
(R-Fla.) have questioned RT’s effectiveness and point to unresolved
issues involving interoperability and the technology behind the
program’s biometrics (see “A Congressional Watchdog Speaks Out,”
above). Others have pointed to the high cost of participation in
the program.
Even the major airlines oppose RT. In a
June 1, 2006, open letter to airport directors, James C. May,
president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Air Transport
Association, warned, “the program will unnecessarily drain limited
TSA resources and detract from the agency’s ability to craft more
comprehensive programs benefiting all travelers.”
Luggage forwarding
Aside from Registered Traveler, some
regular business flyers find relief by using door-to-door
luggage-forwarding services. For a fee, such companies will pick up
and deliver suitcases, golf clubs, skis or other baggage, allowing
for travel without the need to check bags.
“We saw an initial bump after the
change in restrictions,” says Zeke Adkins, co-founder of
Boston-based Luggage Forward, a delivery service. “We’ve seen a
steady increase since then, convincing us that folks want an
alternative to standing in long check-in lines and waiting for bags
at the carousel.”
While most luggage-forwarding services
contract out the actual shipping to companies such as UPS and
FedEx, they relieve the traveler of the hassle of, for instance,
packing their suitcase inside a corrugated cardboard box, a
prerequisite of conventional shipping services.
Chartered aircraft
Another choice gaining popularity is
use of chartered aircraft. For example, New York City-based
Imperial Jets in September reported a 107 percent increase in
weekly inquiries following the reports of the U.K.-based bomb plot.
Other charter aircraft companies report a similar rise in business
since August.
“Business has picked up quite a bit,”
says Greg Goodwin, vice president of marketing with Hingham,
Mass.-based Private Business Jets. “Any time commercial airline
travel becomes less convenient, people turn to us.”
While charter flights can cost
considerably more than flying commercial
aircraft, the convenience level also is
high. Goodwin says his company’s services are often used for
incentive programs and to transport VIPs to meetings and
events.
“It’s just as safe and secure in that
every name of every person is checked though Homeland Security, and
they’re required to show ID before boarding,” Goodwin notes. “But
as far as bringing bottled water or nail clippers goes,
that’s OK.”
Another option for planners might be to
use a private jet company on a standby basis. For example, Hampton,
N.H.-based Private Jet Services Group offers an “airlift
contingency program” to meeting and incentive planners whereby the
company will fly out attendees on short notice in the event of
“natural disasters, political unrest, strikes or commercial airline
interruptions.” Costs apply only when the airlift service actually
is used.
Future shock?
While the partial loosening of
restrictions on gels and liquids in carry-on luggage should ease
the burden on some business travelers, it also might sow confusion
and add to wait times. After all, restrictions have changed at
least three times from Aug. 10 through press time.
More importantly, “The impact on travel
to conventions will be worse than after 9/11 if we have another
attack,” says Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Radnor, Pa.-based
Business Travel Coalition. “If it happens again after five years
and billions of dollars, there’s not going to be any convincing
[people] that travel is safe. If it were just one plane, it would
be really, really bad. But if it’s two or three like the U.K. bomb
plot, then it is the end of the airline industry as we know
it.”
Hopefully, as a result of efforts being
made and debated now, that scenario will never come to pass.