While most travelers aren’t changing or cancelling travel plans due to fear of contracting Ebola, 40 percent noted they are taking extra precautions while flying, according to a survey conducted by GO Airport Express, a GO member and Chicago-based ground transportation company serving O’Hare International and Midway airports and The GO Group, LLC, an international ground transportation service provider.
Of the 802 respondents, 46 percent said were taking no extra precautions and 12 percent said they were unsure.
Of the 417 respondents who said they were taking precautions, 57 noted they were washing hands more frequently and 27 percent said were using hand sanitizer. Just three percent were cancelling travel plans altogether while less than one percent noted they planned on wearing protective gloves or facemask. In total 802 travelers responded to the survey.
Comments included that more attention would be paid to surroundings and the health of fellow travelers, and some indicated they would stay home if they felt ill or had a fever.
“While the results indicate that people are wary of catching Ebola while traveling through airports and on planes, they are not significantly changing travel habits overall,” says John McCarthy, president of GO Airport Express. “The benefit of the extra sanitary precautions that are taken may result in fewer instances of colds and influenza spreading between passengers.”
One of the oldest companies in Chicago, GO Airport Express traces its founding to 1853 and the Parmelee Transportation Company, which provided a carriage service between Chicago’s railroad stations and the downtown hotels. The GO Group, LLC is a one-stop source for door-to-door airport shuttle services. Its members transport some 13 million passengers to and from some 66 airports in the United States, Mexico, Canada and Europe annually.