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Airport Security Survey Reveals Traveler Demands

Posted on: Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 00:20 CDT

KIRKLAND, Wash., July 31 /PRNewswire/ -- FLO Corporation today published results and analysis from an airport security survey of travel industry professionals as well as individual travelers. Airport Passenger Screening Survey was commissioned by FLO Corporation and conducted by Business Travel Coalition (BTC) during July 2007. This is the first major survey of its kind in two years. (Survey results can be accessed at http://www.fastlaneoption.com/.)

Consistent with the 2005 Airport Passenger Screening Survey, also conducted by BTC, participants indicate overwhelming support for the Registered Traveler (RT) program. Some 82% of survey participants indicated that they would like the airlines they travel on to embrace RT. A vast majority, 80% of respondents, would pay $99 for a RT membership in return for consistently expeditious security checkpoint processing, without any other in- lane benefits such as not having to remove shoes, laptops and coats.

FLO Corporation Chief Executive Officer Glenn Argenbright stated, "Travelers are indicating that not having to remove shoes or laptops would be a convenience. However, what is truly important to them is expeditious security lane processing that is predictable and consistent from airport to airport such that a business executive would not have to leave a customer's office 45 minutes early because of not knowing what to expect at an airport on any given day."

Importantly, the survey also found that 38% of survey participants would be Extremely or Very Interested in paying $199 to upgrade from a basic RT membership offering to a premier RT membership with benefits beyond security processing that could include reserved parking at one's home airport, remote baggage check-in at hotels, airport concession discounts and global assistance. Only 6% said they were not interested at all.

"It is true that Transportation Security Administration (TSA) pilot programs, and early airport RT implementations, were necessarily stripped down initiatives that only envisioned "front-of-the-line" benefits, perhaps including not having to remove shoes or laptops -- what BTC calls RT 1.0. These survey results, however, from a customer service perspective, deeply underscore the promise of RT 2.0, a more mature, customer-responsive benefits platform," said BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell.

TSA for some time has encouraged RT service providers to be creative in developing other value-added RT benefits not related to the security checkpoint. These new survey results validate TSA's instincts that to have the broadest possible commercial appeal, consumers would like the options of membership packages with different benefits at varying price points. The broader the appeal, the faster RT can reach critical mass at the national level and, as such, fulfill the TSA RT security mission of moving travelers quickly into secure areas of airports.

Survey Methodology

As with all BTC surveys, questions and raw results are provided so that independent reviews can be undertaken. As an extra measure of transparency with this survey, reporters from two national publications, USA TODAY and Business Travel News, were given unfettered access to the survey Website to examine the results in real time. The survey was conducted over four days, from July 16 through July 19. Twenty-four hundred (2,400) participants were randomly chosen from BTC's electronic community of over thirty thousand (30,000). Two hundred and eleven (211) travel industry professionals and individual business travelers took part in the four-day survey. Survey software was set to block someone from taking the survey more than once.

About FLO Corporation

FLO Corporation, in conjunction with FLO Alliance partners, provides biometric identification technologies and credentialing processes for use in airports in accordance with U.S. Homeland Security's Registered Traveler (RT) Program. FLO Alliance partners consist of industry-leading companies that contribute their respective areas of expertise to develop, market, sell and deploy an end-to-end solution and provide next-generation RT 2.0 membership benefits to qualified individuals for expedited security screening in designated lanes at participating airports in addition to receiving promotional offers and discounts offered by retail partners. The FLO Alliance partnership consists of FLO Corporation, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Johnson Controls, Inc., Smiths Detection Inc., The Paradies Shops, International RAM, and ID Technology Partners. FLO Corporation was created as a subsidiary of Saflink Corporation on March 9, 2007. For more information about the FLO program and Alliance visit http://www.fastlaneoption.com/.

FLO Corporation

CONTACT: Kevin Mitchell for FLO Corporation, +1-610-341-1850,editor@btcNewsWire.com

Web site: http://www.fastlaneoption.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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