March 31, 2010

Thanks to the alleged Christmas terrorist attempt to bring down a Chicago-bound Northwest flight, already-tight security has been ramped-up to hair-pulling inconsistency.

Security officials in Canada, the U.S., U.K. and Netherlands rushed to place orders for full-body scanners, which show all of a passenger’s dangly bits. This has caused debate about safety and privacy. While the American College of Radiology supports these new scanners, they admit there is no science to prove these machines are safe or unsafe. And the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center says Transportation Security Administration (TSA) specifications require that scanners have the ability to store and send images, which leaves machines open for abuse.

To keep terrorists off-guard, the TSA has a policy of ‘floating regulations,’ meaning what is allowed in one airport one day may not be allowed the next. Canada is relying on the ‘discretion’ of the security people.

Interestingly, those flying within or from the U.S. don’t face the same scrutiny, which could be a false sense of security, since the 9/11 terrorists were all on domestic flights.

An informal survey of planners has yet to find any cancellation or relocation of meetings from U.S. destinations. However, planners are monitoring the situation to see if clients are prepared to endure the extra inconvenience, time and money. Les Selby, Carlson Marketing’s manager, strategic delivery, says, “It will be interesting, as time goes on, to see if the regulations have an equal impact on European or Asian travel as they do into the U.S. Even into the Caribbean now, if you’re not flying over the U.S., will the regulations still be there or will they be different? I think the biggest tension we have right now is making sure participants understand the extra time required and making sure we communicate that effectively.”