We Need to Collaborate and Innovate to Save the Future of Air Travel

As we emerge from the pandemic, we’ve seen numerous articles describing how consumers are eagerly contemplating a return to travel, visiting family and friends they may have seen only on computer screens during this unprecedented global pandemic. Similarly, TSA reporting shows a continuing rise in daily travel volumes, and a recent GBTA poll highlighted interest in business travel resumption.

While consumers are excited about the opportunity to travel again, travel has always come with some amount of stress. Prior to COVID-19, TSA, CBP, and the travel industry had already begun to address these stress points, piloting innovative ideas and technologies to support an “airport of the future” that could enable the aviation community to respond to rising travel volumes, while enhancing the traveler experience and providing better and more adaptive security. Since the pandemic began, they’ve continued these efforts, adding additional health and safety protections into the effort.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we believe it's time to consider how to enable an environment conducive to aviation passenger innovation investment, by both government and industry, that will serve the U.S. and its partners well for the next 20 years.

Guidehouse experts Patricia Cogswell and Briana Petyo Frisone discuss several concrete ways the traveler experience could improve in the near term in a column published by Homeland Security Today.