Each year, myriad issues concerning the business travel industry arise around the world creating international policy, regulatory, and legal ramifications for members of the business travel industry. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), as an international membership organisation, seeks to serve as a global advocate for international travelers on critical issues facing the industry.
ACTE files commentary and testimony on behalf of their membership – positions presented are based on ACTE member surveys, studies, and advisory group recommendations – before international organisations, governmental institutions, and business organisations, on a variety of matters. Throughout this process, ACTE offers regional expertise, through the use of local volunteers and regional offices, on proposed legislation and initiatives affecting the business travel community. This article focuses upon four advocacy issues, first presented by ACTE, directly impacting the European membership base with potential global implications.
Passenger name record data
Passenger Name Record (PNR) information for flights between the European Union and the United States is becoming a heavily debated topic. A new draft agreement between the US and the EU, signed June 2007, replaces a permanent agreement signed in 2004 which was deemed unlawful on technical grounds by the European Court of Justice. The new pact, scheduled to enter force August 2007, allows airlines to transmit European PNR information to US officials, prompting renewed debate on passengers’ privacy rights versus US national security interests.
The business travel industry has greeted the pact with mixed reviews, ranging from concerns over fundamental privacy rights, and alleged lack of information to welcoming a compromise on the agreement which substantially reduces information transmitted internationally. Susan Gurley, ACTE Executive Director, exemplified the industry’s disparity in views when applauding the reduction in fields of requested information while simultaneously voicing concern over the amount of time data can be held (3.5 to 15 years), the number of agencies having unchecked access to the data, how data can be used, and the undetermined rights of the passenger to check the data. Gurley added, “As an international organisation, it is ACTE’s responsibility to be cognizant of both the security needs of the US government and privacy rights of European travelers.”
Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, issued a statement assuring Americans and Europeans alike that this was a necessary step, and that the data would not be abused. Chertoff was quoted as saying “Our agreement ensures that PNR data is not used or shared for purposes other than for which it is collected. Adding that “This information has proven necessary in concluding numerous investigations, and continued access will be invaluable in the fight against terrorism, and successfully protecting our borders.”
With ACTE leading the charge against the abuse of PNR data, European officials have also begun to find fault with the new pact, Gurley concluded by saying, “These issues need to be properly addressed, or this will be one agreement subject to contentious revision in a few years.”
Carbon dioxide emissions
Emissions reduction has become one of the pre-eminent issues within the global warming movement. In Europe much of the focus on emissions has been specified into sectors, one being the aviation sector. The manner in which the aviation emissions should be dealt with has become a matter of some contention. Airlines naturally do not want to be regulated anymore than necessary, therefore leaving the debate on how to curb an admittedly small, but rising amount of CO2 intensifying.
To this effect, the European Commission has handed down a legislative proposal in December 2006 suggesting a cap on CO2 emissions for all planes arriving or departing from EU airports, while allowing airlines to buy and sell “pollution credits” on the EU “carbon market.” The emissions from aviation are directly correlated to the amount of fuel consumed, and since 1990 the amounts CO2 of emissions from aviation have increased 87 percent, which is directly correlated with the increase in commercial flights. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that aviation accounts for 3.5 percent of total human activities contributing to climate change and predicts it will account for five percent by 2050. This natural growth rate in travel, and its share in climate change, have undermined industries efforts in this area, and remain one reason why the EU has come up continuously short of meeting their Kyoto commitments.
Notwithstanding the uphill battle to find a strategy allowing the aviation industry to reverse current emission trends, leaders in the industry have not allowed this to slow efforts to battle climate change. ACTE has joined forces with British Airways (BA) to offset conference delegate carbon output for travel to and from ACTE conferences. To achieve this, BA replaces fossil fuels with renewable bio-fuels in the State of Karnataka, India. The bio-fuels help village communities increase self-sufficiency by decreasing their reliance on petroleum products. The global warming effects of more than 700 tonnes of carbon dioxide have been neutralised as a result of this pioneering partnership. These efforts expanded beyond the trial run at ACTE’s Barcelona conference to the recent ACTE Global Education Conferences in Miami (May 2007) and Munich (October 2007).
Mobile devices on planes
With the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approval for the use of handheld communication instruments – cell phones and BlackBerry-type devices – on airborne flights in Europe, ACTE has been working to keep members up-to-date on the technical aspects along with the apparent disparity in mobile efficiency United States versus European road-warriors will invariably face.
Closely following former ACTE president Greeley Koch’s testimony before United States Congress on in-flight cell-phone service, an ACTE 2005/06 survey found 66 percent of respondents supported repealing the mobile-phone ban with 91 percent preferring in-flight texting over typical voice communications. However, with the recent EASA approval and the March 2007 U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announcement to end proceedings analyzing a lift on the cell phone ban (47 C.F.R. §22.925 ) due to insufficient information generated from the 2004 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, U.S. road-warrior mobile productivity faces a set-back in comparison to EU counterparts.
According to Heidi Skatrud, Vice President of Runzheimher International, mobile workers – often comprised of top executives, sales professionals, client service managers and other critical segments – account for at least one-quarter of the workforce, with their numbers expected to continue in growth. As such, European technological advancements and capabilities have led to the strong implication that US road-warrior mobile productivity has been surpassed.
Susan Gurley, ACTE Executive Director, commented “Just five years ago, hotels were debating the wisdom of investing in WiFi. Now high-speed internet access is regarded as essential as running water in a hotel room. And properties that charge for it earn a bit of resentment. Eventually the same will be true for in-flight cell service and internet access. Ignoring the subject not only deprives travelers of an option, but it wastes critical product development time.”
ACTE’s global advocacy has sought to increase awareness of ministry, government, and industry decision makers on matters such as business resiliency, contagion, passenger seating manifest information, data privacy issues regarding laptop seizures, CRS and CSR regulations, and Belgian employment regulations.
Additionally, ACTE proactively collaborates with local and country travel associations to assure that the local perspective on global issues is represented. As such, ACTE public policy issues are broken down on a regional basis to provide membership with localised in-house expertise based on current and ongoing regional issues impacting the business travel community.
