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Travel + Leisure
20-06-2025
- Business
- Travel + Leisure
Major U.S. Airlines Are Selling Your Data to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—What to Know
Most travelers have never heard of the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), but odds are their information has passed through this company, which is owned by eight major U.S. airlines. According to the ARC website, it is 'the world's largest, most comprehensive repository of global airline tickets.' This database was just sold to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—a branch under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. The information includes passenger names, financial details, and passenger's flight itineraries, according to 404 Media. According to the Federal Procurement Data System, ARC signed a contract that gives U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to its Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) database through May 2028. An ARC representative said the TIP was 'created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to provide certain data … to law enforcement.' GovTribe, a software that tracks federal and state contracts, estimates that this contract is worth $776,750. Procurement documents obtained by The Lever and 404 Media state that ICE would be able to search this database using the names or credit card information of a 'traveler/target.' They will have access to 'full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain.' Travel + Leisure reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which referred questions to ICE. At the time of publication, ICE has not responded. 'I have never seen government access to ARC—or even ARC itself—mentioned in an airline privacy policy or a travel agency policy,' travel data privacy expert Edward Hasbrouck told The Lever. ARC is owned and operated by eight major airlines: Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, Lufthansa, and Air France. According to its website, ARC's database represents 54 percent of all flights taken globally. This data is collected directly from airlines and through accredited travel agencies. T+L reached out to all eight airlines. Alaska Airlines pointed to the ARC for a comment; the other seven carriers did not respond to questions at the time of publication. 'It's shocking to a lot of Americans right now that they don't have the rights in travel that they thought they did,' Joshua McKenty, former chief cloud architect at NASA and founder of Polyguard, told T+L. McKenty advised that travelers, especially foreign nationals visiting the United States, buy their own flights. He also said that immigration lawyers and others involved in the refugee process should not purchase their clients' tickets. Otherwise, their data might become affiliated in the eyes of the DHS. This data purchase is happening in parallel to the Real ID mandate, the increase in facial recognition programs at airports, and other changes in travel data privacy. 'The scariest parts of the biometrics are what travelers don't notice or think about,' McKenty said. For those who are not U.S. citizens, there is no guarantee that photos taken at airports will be deleted. In fact, according to Customs and Border Protection documents, 'All biometrics of in-scope [noncitizen] travelers are transmitted to IDENT/HART as encounters and are retained for 75 years in support of immigration, border management, and law enforcement activities.' (HART stands for Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology, and it is a DHS biometric identity database.) Last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) raised concerns about HART and wrote a letter imploring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to take the urgent steps necessary to mitigate privacy risks. A GAO report warns that 'HART could be used beyond its intended scope, leading to surveillance of law-abiding individuals and communities.' Privacy experts also raise concerns around the DHS's collection of immigrant data, including its storage of children's DNA in a criminal database. Privacy is a human right, enshrined by Article 12 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, McKenty warned that a traveler's right to privacy is changing with government policies and is quickly being aligned with the priorities of the administration. McKenty recommends that everyone traveling stay aware of their rights in travel, or lack thereof. 'The idea that we should violate everyone's privacy, so we can look for anything that we as a government think is suspicious is just wrong,' McKenty said. 'We have protections against that as a behavior in every other aspect of government overreach.'
Travel Daily News
26-05-2025
- Business
- Travel Daily News
Travel intent to U.S. remains below 2024 levels
A new analysis by Mabrian reveals a softening in travel intent to the U.S. up to September 2025 among key outbound markets, including Europe, the GCC, and Australia, compared to 2024. The data highlights growing uncertainty among long-haul travellers and a more cautious approach to planning trips to the U.S. that affects the country's competitive positioning as a destination. BARCELPONA, SPAIN – A new analysis by Mabrian, the travel intelligence platform, reveals a softening in global travel intent to the United States for 2025 among key inbound markets, with demand levels remaining below those recorded in 2024. The findings are based on Mabrian's proprietary Share of Searches Index, which measures the demand market share positioning of the United States, based on the spontaneous global flight search behaviour as an indicator of travel interest. Covering the period from January to April 2025, with travel dates extending through September, the study tracks millions of weekly flight searches to the U.S. from Europe, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and Australia. The Share of Searches Index* indicates that travel intent to the U.S. has dropped moderately year-over-year across all markets analysed. European Union countries (EU 27) experienced a moderate -0.3 percentage point decline, while Australia and GCC countries both recorded a significant -0.5 percentage point decrease compared to the same period in 2024. 'In the context of millions of searches, these variations represent meaningful shifts in traveller sentiment and intention,' explains Carlos Cendra, Partner and Director of Marketing and Communications at Mabrian, part of The Data Appeal Company – Almawave Group. The performance of the Share of Searches Index highlights the sensitivity of the travellers' demand from all the inbound markets analysed. 'Rather than a lack of interest in visiting the U.S., our travel intent data highlights long-haul travellers' growing uncertainty about planning trips well in advance, with booking lead times readjusting toward shorter planning horizons,' says Cendra. 'It is precisely during the planning phase that the U.S. is in risk of losing competitive ground, as travellers might be considering alternative destinations'. Moderate decrease in travel intent in Europe's key inbound markets As it happened after January 2025 U.S. presidential inauguration, the tariffs announcement from last April impacted European inspirational demand, still below 2024 levels in the period analysed. By the end of April, the U.S. captured 5.5% of the total flight searches launched by the EU 27 countries during the period analysed. This compound Share of Searches Index fluctuated throughout the period analysed, taking a moderate decrease, averaging -0.3 percentage points year-over-year. British demand, while initially impacted, showed signs of recovering by briefly surpassing last year's levels in mid-March, but in early April, after tariffs were announced by Trump Administration, inspirational demand dropped again -0.8 percentage points year-over-year (moderate decrease). By the end of April, Share of Searches Index settled at 8.1% indicating a weak recovery trend that might benefit from the bilateral agreement on tariffs between the both the UK and the U.S. announced on May 8th. Average Share of Searches Index for Germany, Italy, and France settles around 4.7% by end of April. Germany and Italy each recorded significant decrease nearing -1 percentage point compared to 2024 after the U.S. government updated their tariffs policy, an announcement that had a similar effect in France. In fact. French travel intent, that was converging to 2024 levels, to slightly drop again by mid-April, accumulating a -0.5% percentage points moderate decrease year-over-year during the weeks analysed. Uncertainty in the GCC's and a mixed outlook for Australia Even though it is not still among the most demanded destinations by Gulf Arab countries, the U.S. concentrates 1.7% of the total flight searches launched by these countries between February and April, and overall inspirational demand remains below 2024 levels, showing a significant decrease of -0.5 percentage points year over year. The Share of Searches Index shows that travel demand from the United Arab Emirates dropped weekly by -0.75 percentage points on average, a significant decrease considering that, by end of April, the U.S. market share in the UAE settled to 2.1%. Also, by the end of April, 0.9% of flight searches from Saudi Arabia aimed at the U.S., dropping a significant average of -0.3 percentage points year over year. Finally, and while Australian demand to the U.S. has consistently trailed 2024 levels since February 2025, the last week of April saw the first positive year-over-year shift in ten weeks. The Search of Searches Index increased by +0.3 percentage points, reaching 3.5%, signalling a moderate recovery that will require monitoring in the weeks ahead. * Mabrian's Share of Searches Index is proprietary index that reflects the strength of travel demand to a destination based on the global flight searches behaviour. Mabrian's assessment of the Share of Searches Index performance applies a three-point scale for increase or decrease (minor, moderate, significant), based on the magnitude of percentage point variations and their relative impact on the overall index value.
Skift
15-05-2025
- Business
- Skift
Amadeus Acquires ForwardKeys to Expand Travel Data Analytics
Amadeus views acquisitions as a strategy for tech innovation. This is the third deal the company has announced since the start of 2024. Amadeus has acquired travel data analytics firm ForwardKeys, the company confirmed Thursday. ForwardKeys recently updated the logo on its website to include the phrase 'An Amadeus company.' 'This acquisition will enable our expansion in travel intelligence, thanks to great portfolio and customer complementarity," an Amadeus spokesperson said in a statement. "As this is still a recent acquisition, we are speaking first to key stakeholders: customers, and partners. We will share more information in due course.' Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Valencia-based ForwardKeys says it analyzes data to predict traveler movement and behavior, meant to help clients make better business decisions. Clients include destination marketing organizations, hotels, tour operators, advertisers, car rental companies, retailers, and more. ForwardKeys had $10.4 million (€9.3 million) in revenue in 2023, an increase of 1.1% from the prior year, according to a filing with the Spanish government. The majority of revenue comes from international clients. It reported $1.9 million (€1.7 million) in operating profit and that it spent $1.7 million (€1.5 million) on research and development. The company said it had 74 employees in 2023. ForwardKeys was founded in 2010. Founders include CEO Olivier Jager and IT director Christophe Van Zwynsvoorde. Laurens Van Den Oever, the chief commercial officer, notes on LinkedIn that he is a co-owner. Recent Acquisitions by Amadeus This is the third acquisition that Amadeus has announced since the start of 2024. The company acquired Vision-Box for $347.7 million to expand its biometrics services for airports. And it acquired Voxel for $123.2 million to strengthen its payment tech services for various types of travel companies. Amadeus CEO Luis Maroto told Skift previously that the company needs to keep investing to meet fast-changing technological needs of the travel industry. He looks at acquiring other companies as one of three strategies for innovation, aside from investing in its own tech and partnering with others. 'We are not going to do everything ourselves. It is impossible. We don't have the capability, the resources," Maroto said in December. "The company is healthy financially, so having acquisitions — if we find the right targets that can justify these things at the right price — we will keep acquiring companies in the future, definitely.' Related
