Along with the ample opportunities to network and meet with current and potential vendors, attendees at last month’s NBAA Schedulers and Dispatchers Conference had a slate of educational sessions led by industry experts to choose from, in this year’s case 29 in all, and among the offerings were several safety and emergency-themed seminars.
The world can be a dangerous place, especially when traveling to a foreign country or even a different city. (See related article on page 40.) While it’s the flight crew’s responsibility to get passengers safely to their destination and back, passengers must take responsibility for what happens to them while they are there. That was the topic explored in “Personal Safety for the Travelling Professional,” presented by FrontierMedex vice president Charles LeBlanc. In his presentation LeBlanc detailed the three basic concepts of travel safety: preparedness, prevention and premeditation, offering safety trips for each category. He advised travelers to keep in their room a “go bag”–containing all their important items such as passport and other identification, medications, pen, paper, flashlight, batteries and cellphone chargers–that can be grabbed quickly in case they have to evacuate their room (possibly in the dark) in an emergency. He cautioned international travelers never to let their passports out of their sight and to bring copies. Hotels or other agencies that demand to hold the passport should be given the photocopy instead.
