[Anonymous]

[Jenny Southan]

Dear readers,

I am researching a feature for Business Traveller on how to manage disruption as a consequence of security alerts and incidents around the world.

Have you had a flight cancelled because your airport has been closed due to a bomb threat? Have you had to postpone a trip due to a terror attack or other security incident? Have you been in town when something has happened that has meant you’ve needed to cancel meetings and return home?

It would be interesting to hear about your experiences and how you dealt with them. Also any advice you’d share with fellow business travellers.

Many thanks

[canucklad]

An interesting subject Jenny……

I’d say that most of us have been inconvenienced by bomb threats, indeed my place of work had to change its mail handling procedure due to repeated anthrax hoaxes.
As a result my company expanded its existing processes that now include a major incident protocol starting with a helpline advice number if any of our offices are involved in a terrorist or otherwise incident.

On a personal note, I’m quite pragmatic, and will adjudge my own personal safety on a “as it happens” and likelihood of future threat to my person”. .
When travelling my companies travel website offers up to date information, including foreign office advise.

Ironically, the only time I came close to cancelling a trip was when the London riots occurred.
Humorously, after flying up on the Friday, and meeting my girlfriend in the pub, with Sky News in the background reporting London in flames I found myself re-assuring her that I stayed in West London, nowhere near the affected areas.

——– Breaking News ——- New trouble breaks out in Ealing !!

Everyone who travelled to London for work was given the option not to, until the authorities ion stabilised the increasingly chaotic situation !
I took the pragmatic approach and went anyway, if Londoners can put up with rioting then so could I !! After all I’ve survived many a night out in Glasgow : )

Increasingly though, travel plans are messed up by flooding , stormy weather, and of course the damn Ash cloud !

[Alsacienne]

I try to stay informed, but not get panicked by the media (especially when the same footage is shown over and over again) and to assess the risks as regards my personal travel plans.

Since the New Year’s Eve fire in Dubai, I have taken good advice from BT readers and checked exit routes from my hotel bedroom, and prepared shoes, coat and documents to be close at hand, also a small LED torch … advice which proved to be all too timely last week when the fire alarm was set off by a hoaxer in the hotel I was staying at during the night. THANKS BT READERS – forearmed is forewarned.

In conclusion I would say that you can never allow for every possible eventuality, but be risk aware without being paranoid. If someone wants to change the world by making you afraid to travel, afraid to work outside your own four walls or to stop you from discovering the wonders of this unique planet, don’t give into them – use your intelligence, your flexibility in changing plans, and keep living life to the full.

[MrMichael]

In 1984 I was working in Basra, during the Iran/Iraq war. The hotel I was staying at was shelled, it pretty much wiped out the ground floor and basement. I was asleep on the 7th floor, the whole hotel shook like crazy, dust coming from and in to places you could not imagine. It shocked me to the core…..8 staff and two guests killed. Within an hour the hotel cleaners doing the rooms….within two an early breakfast was being served…..within 3 I had decided to stay much to the surprise and annoyance of the British Embassy staff that had travelled from Baghdad to pick up Brits at the hotel. I stayed another month, and the locals appreciated my determination to finish my work in Basra. They also new my company had immediately upped my salary by 33% to stay for the duration. I figured lightening does not strike twice, and it didn’t. Oddly, four months later I was back home in Hove………and bang…..The Grand Hotel bombing. Margaret Thatcher felt like I had……sod it….carry on. Although my experience was not terrorism…..it was war…..somehow…for me…..war seems so much more honest. Iran was not trying to kill me, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time……albeit if I had been on the ground floor or basement it would have really been the wrong place. I didn’t take it personally, I just thought as I still do…risk is everywhere….even my getting the bus from Twickenham to Surbiton has risk……a whole myriad of risk from terrorist attack, nutcase madman with a knife, hitting a low bridge, vehicle accident, fire, a meteorite landing on my head as I get off…..but I don’t worry……I need to get to Surbiton.

[MartynSinclair]

The main disruption I have encountered security related were the riots and demonstrations in Thailand a few years back. I took advice from the Embassy, clients and hotel staff.

There was no real concern…

The funniest incident was when I needed to leave the Westin, to get to the airport. Sukhumvit Road was totally blocked, but the hotel managed to negotiate a path through with the rioters full support!!

On a more serious issue, I don’t think I would go to any region where there is conflict, even if my client/firm doubled my fee….

[Drsimon]

Having moved to the Adelaide hills recently my only issues have been with the various natural disasters affecting the area – once having to evacuate our house last year for 5 days (the most traumatic personal days of our lives) and then this year having to evacuate work as fires bore down on the area – we now keep torches handy, a bag packed in case, and make sure all data etc is backed up and accessible – I too loved the article recently re hotel fires and keep things ready in case when out (as well as when at home) – be prepared as the scouts used to teach at least

[JohnHarper]

My only experience was that Mrs JH and I were present at that conference in Brighton that Mr Michael refers to above. We were evacuated from the hotel in the middle of the night in our dressing gowns.

We then did what Brits do, dusted ourselves off, attended the special early opening of Marks & Spencer to obtain fresh clothes, utilised the facilities provided to freshen up which IIRC were segregated but cold and communal showers and we were in our places in the conference hall when Mrs Thatcher arrived bang on the minute to open the day’s proceedings. I felt proud to be British that morning.

Now, I make a judgement about where I go, if I’m invited I tend to think I’ll be safe, I’ve been to Iran a number of times in the last year and been made most welcome, felt safe so much so that on the next occasion Mrs JH is coming along. I wouldn’t go to Syria at the moment and would want to look at things carefully before going to Iraq but I can’t think of anywhere else that I wouldn’t go.

Martin – I found during the protests in Bangkok that as soon as they found out that you were a westerner the protesters did all they could to help you and let you through. I was there several times when they were at their height, usually staying and the Peninsula and I really couldn’t say I was treated with anything other than courtesy and kindness. On one occasion a lady who was part of the protests insisted on giving me half her pineapple to eat while the way for my car was cleared! I said afterwards, cut the supply of fresh food and the protest will die. IIRC that’s what they did when protests closed the airport and it worked.

[FDOS_UK]

JohnHarper – 03/02/2016 10:11 GMT

I wouldn’t go near

Yemen
Somalia
Parts of Kenya

Security could also be interpreted as personal safety, so I have very mixed feelings about going to KSA, due to the road safety (an oxymoron if ever there was) statistics.

[Author]

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