Press Release

For Immediate Release
30 May 2007

ACTE Cites Airborne Tuberculosis Case As Justification for CDC Access To Airline Seating Manifests

Alexandria, VA --

With global health officials scrambling to determine the identities of travelers who may been seated next to a passenger with a highly dangerous form of tuberculosis, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) has once again called for new regulations empowering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to track airline seating arrangements. The infected traveler -- now under the first US quarantine since 1963 -- crossed through four countries on two trans-Atlantic flights before driving across the Canadian-US border in early May.

“This is a textbook case of how a highly dangerous bacteria can be spread by air travel,” said ACTE’ s Executive Director Susan Gurley. “There needs to be a reliable process in place permitting the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, plus the World Health Organization, to quickly identify and locate passengers who may have inadvertently been exposed to a contagious disease.”

It is a little known fact that neither the CDC nor WHO have the authority to access airline seating manifests and the identities of passengers. The CDC has long sought for this authority, but has encountered resistance from cost-conscious carriers that claim compiling and storing this data is extremely expensive.

“ACTE first looked into this issue two years ago, with an industry initiative calling for contagion and pandemic preparedness,” said Gurley. “It was then that we learned of the limitations imposed on government health organizations.”

ACTE has stated that the impact of airborne contagion on air travel, as demonstrated by SARS, would be exponentially greater than the cost of collecting and storing data. However, Gurley believes that a middle high ground could be reached by health organizations and carriers to minimize this expense. “A process to identify and treat travelers who could have been exposed to contagion will provide greater service and security for the industry in the long run,” added Gurley.

ACTE recently reiterated this position in commentary to the US Department of Commerce, which is considering a proposal that would deny this authority to the CDC as part of a larger effort to boost tourism.

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