Study: Another terror attack on airlines would cost $420 billion

If terrorists succeeded in bypassing all the existing security procedures and launched another attack on U.S. air travel like they did on 9/11, what would the impact be? In a study funded by the Department of Homeland Security, four experts at the University of Southern California’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events put a price tag on it: as much as $420 billion in losses for the airline industry and related businesses. Published in the current issue of the journal Risk Analysis, the study predicted that an airline-centered terrorist attack would result in an immediate seven-day shut-down of all U.S. air travel. The shut-down would be three days longer than the one after 9/11, the authors said, “because protection against future attacks would require not only controlling wo gets on planes, but also a search of areas surrounding airports and installation of stronger protective and security services at or near airport perimeters.” That shut-down would cost the industry $12 to $21 billion, they estimated. After that, they said, the industry would take as long as two years to recover fully because “passenger travel would be diminished due to psychological aftereffects of the attack.” The total loss over two years would be $214 to $420 billion, they predicted. “These estimates suggest that the high costs of effective countermeasures may be justified,” they concluded.