World Travel Industry Must Brace for Bird Flu Pandemic

An Association of Corporate Travel Executives task force has met the Center for Disease Control amid concerns about the threat of a bird flu pandemic. The aim of the meeting was to confirm the nature of the threat and to identify the areas in which the business travel industry could move forward in pandemic preparation.

Awareness of the disease´s progress and the efforts to contain and treat it are now especially significant, according to ACTE. ACTE´s website will begin listing the most credible links to health and travel advisories, plus other available resources. The task force will monitor the activities of the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) and report accordingly.

It is likely the avian influenza pandemic issue will be a special focus of ACTE´s global conference in London from October 23 to 25.

“There is lot of confusion and unanswered questions regarding avian influenza,” said task force chairman and former ACTE president Mark Williams. “We want to eliminate panic by dispelling the misconceptions and provide the industry with reliable information.”

Gearing up to deal with a pandemic, which may or may not occur, comes with a significant cost, and the price of this effort will be high, ACTE believes.

Agencies like the CDC are unable to easily alert travelers who may have been exposed to illness by a passenger sitting in an adjacent airline seats due to US and European privacy laws which prohibit airlines from tracking and releasing seat manifests and emergency contact numbers, according to ACTE.