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Did I Pack My Toothbrush? Getting Organized for Travel
For many of us summertime = vacation time. Some people will spend their days off at the local pool. Some may choose to sightsee in their own town. Many will leave behind the comforts of home for the open road. Regardless of the destination or...
Namibia - A Bountiful Harvest Awaits the Adventure Traveler
Namibia is a largely arid country of stark rough-hewn beauty. The most vivid images are those of a haunting technicolor landscape of swirling orange dunes, shimmering mirages and treacherous dust devils. The apparent desolation is deceptive and...
Travel To Russia - Kamchatka
Among the mysteries of the Russian language there is an expression "Sitting on Kamchatka" which in school slang, this idiom means, "to sit in the back row of the classroom, far enough from the teacher's strict gaze. This geographical idiom...
Traveling with Your Pet: A Quick Checklist for Pet Owners
In the rush and excitement before leaving for a trip, it's so easy to forget something. And when you're a pet owner, it's even more of a challenge -- not only are you packing for yourself, but you're packing for your pet, too! [It doesn't help...
Understanding The Travel Agent Position
Getting To Know the Work of a Travel Agent
For people who are fond of traveling to different places,
visiting marvelous beaches, and taking a trip to the most exotic
island paradise, the job of a travel agent seems to be a far
better job...
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Will You Be a Trusted Traveler?
Editor: The following article is offered for your free use providing the Resource Box at the end is included.
WILL YOU BE A TRUSTED TRAVELER?
By Laura Quarantiello
© Tiare Publications
404 words
Security checkpoints have become a genuine pain for air travelers. Where once you could breeze right through the
x-ray scanner and head for the boarding gate, now you must endure careful checks of your carry-on luggage and perhaps even of your person. It's the legacy of September 11th and a
necessary step toward keeping air travelers safe. But the delays are increasing and passengers are grumbling. Frequent flyers,especially, are complaining about the slowdown and the hassle caused by long security lines.
Enter the Trusted Traveler program, the brainchild of an airline industry committee working on ways to improve airport security. With Trusted Traveler, anyone who wanted to forgo long airport security lines would authorize the government to conduct a
background check and take their thumbprint or an iris scan of their
eyes. Once cleared, they would receive an identification card encrypted with their "biometric ID." Airports would have reserved checkpoints where passengers could present their card, have their fingerprint or iris scan matched to the card's information, and be passed through to the boarding area. This type of prescreening would reduce lengthy lines and let frequent travelers avoid much of the current airport hassle. "From my perspective, it makes
more sense to subject the people I know a lot about to a lesser degree of security and the people I don't know anything about to a greater
degree of security. It just makes a lot of sense to spend the finite amount of security resources we have on the folks who are unknown," says Dirk C. McMahon, Northwest Airlines Senior Vice President for Customer Service.
Experts say that the Trusted Traveler program won't appeal to everyone. Those who fly infrequently won't need to go through the rigorous background checks necessary to be labeled a trusted
traveler, and those with something to hide or those with concerns about privacy won't want the government checking their bona fides. For frequent travelers, however, the program could mean valuable minutes saved, hassles avoided, and a smoother airport experience.
For now the program is just an idea; the Air Transport Association is working on a proposal for the Transportation Security Administration and the Homeland Security Department that it hopes will put a 90-day pilot project at Northwest and Midwest Express using already-screened airline personnel into operation by the end of the year. If all goes according to plan, the Trusted Traveler program could be in place at Northwest
by mid-2003.
(end)
About the Author
Laura Quarantiello is a freelancewriter specializing in air traveland the airline industry. She is the author of “Air-Ways:The Insider’s Guide to Air Travel.
http://www.tiare.com/airways.htm
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