This month's evolving public furor over the U.S.
Transportation Security Administration's expanded full-body scans and enhanced
pat-downs sparked corporate travel industry concerns about balancing traveler
security and comfort and led some to consider duty-of-care policies to address traveler
concerns.
Public outcry against TSA grew quickly after the enhanced
pat-downs, which involve contact with travelers' breasts and genitals, were
introduced for those who decline to use scanners that use advanced imaging
technology to produce essentially unclothed image outlines of travelers'
bodies. TSA this year began an aggressive rollout of two forms of the body
scanners and said it since has installed 211 backscatter units in 38 airports
and 174 millimeter-wave units in 30 airports.
TSA and others vouched for the safety of the scanners
despite the low dose of radiation they emit. "The amount [of radiation]
you get from eating half a banana is equivalent to one scan," said Peter
Kant, executive vice president for Rapiscan, developer of the backscatter
units. Still, some buyers are weighing whether a policy governing corporate
responsibility regarding its travelers is warranted.
The radiation dosage, after all, may be "miniscule in
terms of occasional travelers, but obviously road warriors would have a much
higher exposure," argued a travel manager from a high-tech company. As a
result, the company's travel department is "now liaising with our legal
counsel on our approach, so at the moment we're just evaluating."
"There are two duty-of-care issues here: mental health
and physical health," said Business Travel Coalition chairman Kevin
Mitchell. "Science really hasn't been put forth in terms of the safety of
this technology to any level that satisfies people who are concerned about the
issue. The concern is acute for pregnant women or some with skin cancers. If
you are a corporation with thousands of travelers, you have to be saying to
yourself, 'What is going to happen here?' In looking at it from a duty-of-care
issue, by January it is going to start to be discussed pretty widely."
Association of Corporate Travel Executives executive
director Ron DiLeo called incorporating such concerns under a duty-of-care
umbrella "a good use of time and a great idea," but iJet Intelligent
Risk Systems CEO Bruce McIndoe said "there was an insignificant elevation
of risk" due to the scanners because "there is less exposure to
ionizing radiation by the scanners than traveling in the airplane at 30,000 to
40,000 feet."
Industry Shows
Support
More than 80 percent of 934 travel professionals polled this
month by the National Business Travel Association said that when they next
travel, they "definitely" or "probably" will accept the
full-body scans and enhanced pat-downs "if it results in increased safety
in air travel." Nine percent said they "might or might not"
accept the new procedures, while 6 percent said they probably will not and 4
percent said they definitely will not.
Some of the poll respondents—which included both travel
buyers and sellers—expect to tolerate the new policies only reluctantly. Just
over half indicated they "support" them and 27 percent said they don't.
Two-thirds of all respondents said they feel "about as safe"
traveling by air as they did "one month ago," while 29 percent
indicated they feel safer.
"Business travel professionals are adopting a
wait-and-see attitude toward these new measures," according to NBTA
executive director Mike McCormick, adding that they are concerned about adding "delays
and disruptions to an already challenging travel security process."
More than seven in 10 participants indicated they would be
willing to "pay for and undergo a one-time, in-depth security check that
would enable them to pass through airport security more quickly and
efficiently."
Business Travel
Resilient
Given that air travel is "an exercise in patience,"
a U.S. Travel Association study claims "air travelers were so frustrated
in 2008 that 41 million of them canceled their trips, not rebooked them—costing
the economy $26 billion."
"From a corporate travel perspective, what we have
heard is those that travel most are those who are the most frustrated with the
system," according to USTA executive vice president Geoff Freeman. "We
have heard travelers say that they are avoiding trips, and this isn't just due
to the recent issues with the TSA; this is due to the hassle factor—the delays,
the cancellations.
"There are economic consequences to that, not just to
the travel industry but also to the companies," Freeman continued. "There
is a return on investment of face-to-face interaction. If we are serious about
turning this economy around and creating jobs, we have to be equally as serious
as getting Americans out there on the road. Air travel is the gateway to
commerce."
However, ACTE's DiLeo said TSA's new procedures would not "negatively
affect the upward trend in travel. Business performance is what is going to
rule the day as opposed to convenience. We are being inconvenienced by travel.
It is a necessary part of the whole experience of traveling, and CEOs—whether
they are public or private companies—are interested in driving shareholder
value [and] improving their business. You have to go out and spend time with
your clients and your customers. [Corporations] are going to have to find
people who are willing to travel. If I know someone is going to be personally
violated, I would be wrong as a leader of that company to make them still
travel. I am going to have people who are going to focus on getting through it
and who are not going to feel personally violated. TSA is going to do what TSA
thinks they need to do, whether you agree with it or not."
According to NBTA, "With proper strategic planning, TSA
can ensure safety for travelers without implementing new security measures that
impose additional and unnecessary burdens on the traveling public; in fact,
many of these measures are already in place."
Citing Secure Flight and the Global Entry international
registered traveler program, NBTA urged TSA "to build onto these current
layers of protection by reinstating a domestic registered traveler program with
a security component." The association added that it "supports
airport security programs that balance the necessity of safety with privacy of
the individual traveler."
Hogg Robinson Group is "working closely with clients to
ensure corporate travelers continue business as usual," according to
commercial director Stewart Harvey, adding that the travel management company "welcomes
new security procedures."
Harvey noted that "most travelers seem happy with the
introduction of the new body scanners as long as they improve safety for all
passengers. Our clients are just accepting that the scanners are a part of the
journey now, and many see them as a natural progression in anti-terrorism technology.
Passengers have been quietly getting on with their journeys, and if that means
being body-scanned and waiting for a little longer, then so be it."
Chris Davis and David
Jonas contributed to this report, which appears in the Nov. 29 issue of
Business Travel News.