The Threat of Terrorism as an Intervention on International Travel Flows

Abstract

This article applies the method of intervention analysis to the study of flows of U.K. air passengers to a variety of destinations. The significance and form of interventions on U.K. air travel are examined for the U.S. bombing of Libya in 1986 for which implicit assistance was given by the United Kingdom, the Lockerbie air disaster (1988), and the Persian Gulf crisis (1990-1991). The effects of these interventions on U.K. air travel vary in onset, magnitude, and duration according to the destination involved and the state that a crisis has reached.