|
|
|
Riding In The Lap Of Luxury Travel With A Virgin Island Yacht Charters
If you've never had the experience of being at the helm of a yacht as you sail through the crystal waters of the Virgin Islands, then consider making that your next vacation goal. A variety of yacht rental and/or vacation facilities are available...
Time Your Trip Around Currency Fluctuations - The Cheap Way to Travel
Finding a cheap vacation spot abroad can be virtually impossible - everything seems more expensive these days, and vacations are no exception. So how do you find a bargain? One way is to plan your trip to a place that is experiencing currency woes...
Travel Health: Useful medical information for good health before your departure, during your trip and after your return.
The diseases most commonly seen in travellers are diarrhoea, malaria (if you travel in a malaria-infested area), accidents (when travelling by car or swimming), wound infections and sexually transmitted diseases. - Diarrhoea is caused by...
Travel Italy - Italy's must see Art and Architecture
Every year millions of visitors trek through Italy in search of ancient culture, great food, art, architecture, and more. The allure is immediate even to those who have never been. There is more art and architecture to see in Italy than one person...
Traveling in Germany
When deciding to take a vacation to a western country, I
recommend Germany. It has various landscapes and very nice small
towns and big cities.
This country is, of course, to big to travel all at one time but
with a trip of about one month,...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
|