Costs of War: Flying unfriendly skies
By Shaun Waterman for ISN
Last year, there were nearly 24 million overseas, or non-North American, visitors to the US - almost all by air - up from just over 21.5 million the previous year, but still two million fewer than in 2000, the last complete year before the 11 September terrorist attacks, and the subsequent imposition of draconian border and air transport security measures.
And earlier this year the Travel Industry Association - a group representing the US tourist trade - claimed that "deep frustration among [US] air travelers caused them to avoid an estimated 41 million trips over the past 12 months," at a cost to the industry and the economy of US$26 billion.
The figures are based on a survey the trade group commissioned, which asked passengers on US domestic airlines about their flight experiences.
More than one quarter, 28 percent, of the 1,003 respondents said they had decided against taking at least one flight in the previous year because "problems with the air travel system made the trip seem like more of a hassle than it was worth."
Extrapolating from that, the association arrived at the figure that 41 million trips had either not happened or been taken with some other mode of transportation.
That claim may require more than a grain of statistical salt, but the detail of the survey is interesting nonetheless for the information it provides about negative perceptions passengers have of new air travel security procedures - and the gold-badged Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff who administer them.
Nearly one in five respondents, 17 percent, said they had missed a plane in the last year because of delays in pre-flight security screening. Among the more frequent flyers - the business travelers that are the cash cows of the airline industry - the proportion was higher, rising to 28 percent, more than one in four, among those who took more than five trips a year.
More than a third cited security screening as among the aspects of air travel that "you feel most need to be improved," second only to flight delays and cancellations. Getting through security was also the second-most often cited aspect of air travel "you look forward to the least," just behind "seats are too small [...] plane is too crowded."
And the picture is, if anything, even worse among foreign visitors, who must cope with the security requirements of the post-9/11 border and immigration regime, as well as those of the TSA.
A survey of more than 2,000 long-haul international travelers from 16 countries around the world, commissioned by another tourist industry group, the Discover America Partnership, found the US was ranked the least traveler-friendly destination "in terms of obtaining necessary documents or visas, and having immigration officials who are respectful toward foreign visitors."
More than a third of respondents - 39 percent - ranked the US worst. The next-most traveler-unfriendly destinations were the Middle East and the Central and South Asia regions, each of which were listed worst by just 16 percent.
It is worth noting that those regions include such famously welcoming travel destinations as Syria, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Moreover, the 16 countries from which the survey sample was drawn included just two Middle Eastern or Islamic nations - Turkey and the United Arab Emirates - both of which are close US allies, whose population might be expected to be more US-friendly than the balance of such nations.
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, many pundits attributed the steep decline in overseas visitors to the fear of further terrorist strikes, but the survey shows that even if that were once true, the reality today is different.
"Legal and security issues" like the fingerprinting of foreign visitors, "or the way foreign visitors are treated by US immigration officials and security officials," were cited by 70 percent as a concern when visiting, compared to 54 percent listing terrorism or other "crime and safety" issues.
Nor are the worries about border rules and treatment simply the product of bad publicity. Among those who had actually visited the US and experienced them first hand, concern about new visa and passport rules and border procedures was even higher - 76 percent.
"The US entry process has created a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers [...] and damaging America's image abroad," concluded the partnership.
They are right. By deterring visitors, the US is missing an enormous opportunity - not just economically, but in public diplomacy terms, too. The survey found that those that have visited were 74 percent more likely to have an extremely favorable opinion of the US than those who had not.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security say that new visa and entry procedures, in particular the development of the biometric border system and fingerprint database known as US-VISIT, have made the US more secure.
They say hundreds of malefactors - immigration violators with multiple identities, deported felons and the like - have been denied entry as a result of the new checks. They even cite a case in which the fingerprints - or rather the fingers - of someone previously denied entry for another reason later turned up in the carnage following a suicide bombing they carried out in Iraq.
But they cannot show that a single terrorist has ever been caught entering the country because he had to give his fingerprints, rather than just present a passport.
In truth, the plan for a biometric entry-exit system long predated 9/11, and was originally intended to improve the integrity of the immigration system. The policymakers that framed it understood that - popular myths to the contrary not withstanding - most of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the US came in legally and overstayed their visas.
But as a way to close that immigration back door, US-VISIT will only work if someone figures out how to collect fingerprints from everyone leaving the country, as well as those arriving, so that overstayers can be automatically flagged. What officials call the "exit portion" of the system is a multi-billion dollar problem to which they admit there is no good answer at the land borders; and which they now propose to force airlines to solve for them at the airports.
Things are little better in the realm of aviation security.
Despite the endless lines, the requirements to remove shoes and belts, and the restrictions on liquids in carry-on luggage; covert testing at 19 US airports by congressional investigators last year found that it was still possible to get components for several kinds of homemade bombs on board commercial airliners.
In essence, officials are reduced to arguing that measures they have taken in both border and aviation security are little more than high-tech scarecrows - deterrents whose visibility is as least as important as their efficaciousness.
Unfortunately, such measures are like the old joke about garlic: If you eat enough of it, it does keep vampires away. The only problem is, it keeps everyone else away, too.