Travelers today
face an increasing number of global concerns, including war and terrorism in
the Middle
East, continued war in Central Europe,
earthquakes in Japan, record
numbers of weapons stopped at TSA checkpoints, grounding
of commercial aircraft models and more.
This unsettled
travel landscape is prompting travelers to pay an increasing amount of
attention to the potential safety and security hazards they’ll face as they
plan their upcoming trips, and the proportion of people buying travel
protection plans is also rising accordingly.
“Traveler
uncertainty generally increases traveler demand for emergency medical and
security services,” said Dan Richards, CEO of The Global Rescue Companies, a
leading provider of medical, security, evacuation and travel risk management
services, and a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Travel and Tourism
Advisory Board. “We’ve seen a 33 percent increase in traveler purchases of security services
in the past year, and we expect that will continue.”
“We’re seeing an
understandable increase in traveler concern worldwide, but it is the most
pronounced in the Middle East. Nevertheless, international trip-takers continue
to be undaunted with the idea of wartime travel. We’ve seen this traveler
behavior since the war
in Ukraine began, and we’re seeing it even more recently following the
attack on Israel,” Richards continued.
Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 at takeoff. (Photo Credit: Laser1987/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)
Besides geopolitical
challenges, the aviation industry is also trying to cope with the recent groundings
of the Boeing
737 Max 9 model aircraft, following an accident in which the door of an Alaska
Airlines plane blew out in mid-air, leading to a rapid cabin depressurization
and subsequent emergency landing. The unsettling incident led the Federal
Aviation Administration to ground all 737 Max 9s for thorough equipment safety
inspections, disrupting airlines’ schedules, and causing flight cancellations
and delays.
Luckily,
advancements in safety and security technologies and services can help flyers
find more peace of mind. For instance, travelers who might have worries about
their aircraft's safety can now leverage apps like FlightRadar24.
“You can’t kick
the tires, look under the hood of the flight you're taking, or talk to the
captain of the flight,” said Harding Bush, a former Navy SEAL and associate
director for security operations at Global Rescue. But, such apps display information
about the specific aircraft assigned to their flight—including recent flight
history, equipment age, past upgrades and overall safety records—empowering
travelers with data-driven insights.
Bush, however,
emphasized the safety of commercial flights, emphasizing that numerous studies
consistently prove that airlines in the U.S. and other developed countries comply
with International Civil Aviation Organization safety requirements. “That makes
flights on a commercial airline much safer than driving an automobile on a
highway,” he said.
TSA line at Orlando International Airport. (photo by Eric Bowman)
In addition, the strict
measures implemented post-9/11 to prevent weapons and explosives from boarding
planes have nearly eliminated terrorist hijackings, according to the
International Center for Counterterrorism.
“But as travel
volumes increase, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is advancing
programs to streamline traveler processing while maintaining security,
including the Screening at Speed Program that allows PreCheck passengers to
conduct a self-service screening with scant help from TSA security agents,”
said Adam Bardwell, a former U.S. Army Green Beret and a Global Rescue security
operations supervisor.
Like something out
of a sci-fi movie, Screening at Speed technology will, “enable the scanning of
walking passengers, acquiring data through most garments and reliably detecting
a wider range of prohibited items, regardless of concealment,” according to DHS
officials. The futuristic program, presently available only to PreCheck
travelers, is set for a trial run at Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International
Airport this month.
“If the
scan-while-you-walk tech succeeds, by 2025 PreCheck travelers won’t even need
to stop walking to get through security, let alone take their shoes off,” Bush remarked.
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