The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) praised a reported advance in negotiations between the European Union and the United States regarding the exchange of information on air travel…
The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) praised a reported advance in negotiations between the European Union and the United States regarding the exchange of information on air travel passengers.
While no agreement has been officially announced, a provisional agreement is expected. The agreement, which would be subject to the approval of each EU member nation, would significantly cut back on the number of data elements currently transferred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for each passenger onboard flights from EU countries to the United States.
The current agreement, which expires at the end of July, calls for 34 data points from the Passenger Name Record (PNR) to be transferred to DHS. The new agreement would reduce that number to 19 and would allow DHS to store and access that data for seven years, and would add an additional holding period of eight years with stricter limits on access.
C. Stewart Verdery, Jr., former Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security who negotiated the original PNR treaty between the United States and the EU in 2004 and currently the lead Government Affairs consultant to NBTA, commented, “Three years of experience in using passenger data to protect international aviation while respecting the privacy of law-abiding travelers has built confidence in our security systems. I congratulate both sides on amending the agreement to continue this positive record.”
The current accord is set to expire at the end of July, and until this week there were few signs of progress. NBTA has been quite concerned that an impasse would put carriers in a situation in which they would have to choose between violating EU law or U.S. law in order to fly between the world’s two largest business travel markets. As such, NBTA has been advocating on behalf of the business travel community for a new agreement that would avoid such an impasse and preserve carrier’s ability to facilitate business travel, which is essential to both the EU and U.S. economies. The organization looks forward to sharing details of the new agreement with its members, and to continuing to be the voice of business travel in Washington.
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