December 05, 2007 - Several airlines, associations and other travel industry constituents added their voices to a chorus opposed to the Transportation Security Administration's proposed Secure Flight air passenger security program. Using such descriptors as "unacceptable," "unrealistic," "unreasonable," and "imponderable," these parties provided feedback to TSA just ahead of the Nov. 22 deadline for public commentary. More than 100 comments had already been filed by early October from such critics as the
Association of Corporate Travel Executives, American Society of Travel Agents, The Identity Project, Qantas Airways and the Regional Airline Association.
Under the proposed rules, TSA would collect data from airlines (which would be required to collect data from such third parties as travel agencies) on passengers booked on all flights operated within, to, from and over the United States. TSA would then check that data against terrorist watch lists and inform airlines of which passengers should and should not be issued boarding passes.
Though most agreed that comparing air passenger lists with government watch lists should be a government function, commenters questioned the legality, practicality and cost of the specific processes and systems TSA envisions.
"First and foremost, Secure Flight raises the prospect of lengthier and more
unpredictable processing times for passengers," according to the Air Transport Association of America. "This will occur in online transactions because of additional passenger information that will be requested. It will occur during
reservation calls because of the need for the airline customer service representative to ask for that additional information, and the predictable questions that customers will ask about why the information is needed, how it will be used and how it will be safeguarded."
The requested information would include a passenger's full name, gender, date of birth, passport information (if available), record locator number and other information--though only a full name would be required to actually make a reservation.
"Forcing travel reservation agents to be the initial collection point for Secure Flight data elements will require travel agents to alter their existing electronic and manual collection systems," according to a filing by Sabre Holdings Corp. The proposed rules are "completely silent on who will pay the costs associated with documentation, training and software implementations for graphical interfaces, customer profiles, mid-office reporting, quality control scripting and negative call center impacts, i.e., increase in headcount or delay in call answering time."
If travel agents are required to collect more information, Sabre continued, they should be entitled to the same benefits as a government contractor, "as if they were standing in the shoes of the federal government." Sabre "does not advocate scrapping this program," but said the proposed rules must be amended to avoid adverse impacts across the industry.
As for the data itself, an Alaska Airlines filing said requirements for airlines to provide such information as birth date and address "represents a breach of trust with our customers and is unacceptable." The airline added that "since it is impossible for carriers to verify whether passengers have provided their actual full name, it is unreasonable to require carriers to refuse reservations to passengers if they do not provide a full name."
In a filing on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and chairwoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) wrote, "The amount of information that would be required appears to outweigh the stated purpose of the Secure Flight program."
Meanwhile, because travelers would be uncertain as to which information is required during each step of the travel process, American Airlines suggested "travelers will be unnecessarily frustrated with the airline," possibly unable to print boarding passes ahead of time or get onto upgrade priority lists, and forced "to arrive at the airport early to stand in a long and unpredictable line in order to provide the information that TSA requires."
Northwest Airlines said that an additional 30 seconds per reservation transaction--one TSA estimate for collecting additional passenger information--"is unacceptable." Northwest also described as unacceptable TSA's caveat that carriers "in some circumstances ... would have to interview the passenger to complete the confirmation process." That, Northwest said, is "a law enforcement function, for which airline agents are not trained. In addition, if a physical description is required from the carrier, this could be defined as profiling, a business that airlines cannot be involved in."
TSA also drew fresh criticism for its proposal to collect passenger information 72 hours before flight departure. According to airlines, such a requirement would complicate processes for standby passengers, rebooking when flights are cancelled and airline code share cooperation.
For example, "Malaysia Airlines has six blocked-space codeshare arrangements with other partner airlines," according to the carrier's filing. Under those deals, "seats are released back to Malaysia Airlines only 24 to 46 hours before departure."
The National Business Travel Association said it does not object to the 72-hour requirement "so long as air carriers are afforded alternative and equally effective mechanisms" to accommodate passengers who make or change reservations within 72 hours.
To ease some of these concerns, United Airlines suggested the 72-hour requirement be revised to 48 hours. "Intuitively, reservations are more stable closer to departure," the carrier wrote.
Several airlines also implored TSA to examine the impact of its proposals regarding boarding passes, which would prevent issuance more than 24 hours in advance and would disallow single boarding passes for multi-carrier itineraries.
Regarding the former, "Why not allow boarding pass issuance for those passengers who receive a 'cleared' vetting response within 72 hours rather than the current 24-hour rule?" Northwest asked. On the latter, "the Secure Flight [proposal] would require passengers transferring between carriers on an international itinerary to interrupt their travel and check in again when they change carriers," Alaska Airlines wrote. "This is an unacceptable step backwards in regards to customer service."
The Association of European Airlines and several individual carriers also criticized TSA for including under the Secure Flight purview flights that over fly U.S. airspace but do not land at or depart from a U.S. airport. Such a proposal "does lack an international legal foundation," AEA suggested. The U.S. ATA also warned TSA about "the possibility of inconsistent or retaliatory demands of foreign governments."
Commenters raised several other issues:
• Southwest Airlines called for "performance standards" for TSA's proposed rules to minimize "the prospect of lengthier and more unpredictable processing times for passengers upon their arrival at airport gates or ticket counters."
• NBTA "expects that the standardization of names used to book tickets and conduct watch-list reviews ... will both minimize the number of people
inaccurately confused with a terrorism suspect and make the DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program process more effective." However, NBTA noted that 8,500 of 15,900 requests for redress between Feb. 20 and Oct. 26. were not resolved.
• Sabre said "neither airlines nor travel agencies should be responsible for reimbursing travelers for incidentals (i.e. meals, hotel rooms, etc.) associated with a missed flight or other inconvenience caused as the result of a TSA/Secure Flight delay. ... Neither travel agents nor airlines should be required to be customer service representatives for the federal government, especially where the requirement constitutes an unquantified, but very real, unfunded mandate."
• ATA said TSA has not tested in a live environment "the data volumes that implementation of the proposed rule will generate. ... The ability of TSA to shoulder the burden of its new responsibility thus remains an imponderable."
Too costly, not enough time
Given these and other issues, the travel industry has reached a consensus that TSA's proposed 60-day timeline for Secure Flight implementation (after final rules are published) is unrealistic. It is "setting up both TSA and the airlines for failure," ATA wrote. Lufthansa described it as "definitely not achievable."
Instead, AEA, Korean Airlines and NBTA each recommended a 180-day implementation phase. Northwest Airlines and the Interactive Travel Services Association (representing online travel companies and global distribution system firms) suggested upwards of a year. American Airlines said Secure Flight programming "may take up to 18 months to complete."
Sabre said it may take even more time for GDS companies and travel agencies to "design, code, test and implement the necessary changes ... especially when there are so many unknowns." The company also noted that a 60-day deadline would force it to violate 90-day notification requirements in its client contracts.
Sabre also said that "imposing additional costs on the travel distribution industry is a topic that is inadequately addressed" by TSA's proposal. TSA estimated that the average airline expense over a 10-year period would range from $20.7 million to $67.9 million, but ATA called that projection "low."
