Observations on Travel After September 11
Dec 5th, 2001 | 05:16 AM
#1
Guest
Posts: n/a
Observations on Travel After September 11
The week before September 11, I boarded a flight in Boston for Frankfurt. It was a routine business trip; the kind I make dozens of times each year. Check-in at Lufthansa took under a minute; the suitcase I carried stuffed with electronic equipment did not even merit a second look when my luggage was inspected. The lone “incident” was my violation of a Lufthansa policy against using cell phones on board, even while the plane is still at the gate. I was given a stern rebuke by the purser. Then came the day when terrorists turned airplanes filled with people into fuel bombs. Boston’s Logan International was the embarkation point for two of those flights, and the airport was one of the last in the U.S. to re-open.
I have resumed travel both for business and pleasure since that fateful Tuesday. Here are some notes on what I’ve observed.
Monday, September 17. My wife and I had planned our vacation in Italy for months; the tickets, upgrades and hotels secured nearly eight weeks earlier. We pondered canceling the trip but elected to go, recognizing that finding another two-week block in our lives could well mean postponing the trip indefinitely. Logan had re-opened only on Saturday and United had re-instated its Boston-London service just the previous evening. We arrived at the airport two hours early, only to find it nearly deserted. Our first surprise was to find that we could not check baggage through to Rome – we would have to collect and re-check it in London. That would make our once-leisurely 90-minute connection uncomfortably tight.
The only thing we could buy in the terminal was a newspaper. The clerk at the counter explained that “nothing is getting through and every employee is being re-checked.” Beyond the security checkpoint, all stores were closed. United’s Red Carpet Club was operating with a skeleton staff and without food or beverage service.
We went to our gate at 6:30 p.m. only to be told that there been a “security breach.” The 139 passengers (a load factor of under 50%, even though nearly a week’s worth of flights had veen cancelled) went through two security checks, all hand luggage was searched, and our passports were inspected numerous times. Finally, in groups of six, we were taken to the plane. Our flight left at 8:30 p.m. On board, meals were served with all-plastic cutlery: no metal knives or forks, and no glass.
Heathrow immigration was chaos as dozens of arriving flights dumped all passengers into a system designed to handle just a fraction of the load. We did not clear customs until nearly 9:00 a.m. London time, long after our connecting British Midlands flight had left. We found no other airline would accept our ticket. “You could have a full fare, first class ticket and we still couldn’t take it,” I was told at British Airways. We took the next British Midlands flight at 11:30 a.m..
(end of part 1)
I have resumed travel both for business and pleasure since that fateful Tuesday. Here are some notes on what I’ve observed.
Monday, September 17. My wife and I had planned our vacation in Italy for months; the tickets, upgrades and hotels secured nearly eight weeks earlier. We pondered canceling the trip but elected to go, recognizing that finding another two-week block in our lives could well mean postponing the trip indefinitely. Logan had re-opened only on Saturday and United had re-instated its Boston-London service just the previous evening. We arrived at the airport two hours early, only to find it nearly deserted. Our first surprise was to find that we could not check baggage through to Rome – we would have to collect and re-check it in London. That would make our once-leisurely 90-minute connection uncomfortably tight.
The only thing we could buy in the terminal was a newspaper. The clerk at the counter explained that “nothing is getting through and every employee is being re-checked.” Beyond the security checkpoint, all stores were closed. United’s Red Carpet Club was operating with a skeleton staff and without food or beverage service.
We went to our gate at 6:30 p.m. only to be told that there been a “security breach.” The 139 passengers (a load factor of under 50%, even though nearly a week’s worth of flights had veen cancelled) went through two security checks, all hand luggage was searched, and our passports were inspected numerous times. Finally, in groups of six, we were taken to the plane. Our flight left at 8:30 p.m. On board, meals were served with all-plastic cutlery: no metal knives or forks, and no glass.
Heathrow immigration was chaos as dozens of arriving flights dumped all passengers into a system designed to handle just a fraction of the load. We did not clear customs until nearly 9:00 a.m. London time, long after our connecting British Midlands flight had left. We found no other airline would accept our ticket. “You could have a full fare, first class ticket and we still couldn’t take it,” I was told at British Airways. We took the next British Midlands flight at 11:30 a.m..
(end of part 1)
Dec 5th, 2001 | 05:17 AM
#2
Guest
Posts: n/a
(part 2 of 3)
Our return through Heathrow was equally eye-opening. We had, fortunately, scheduled an overnight stop-over in London before boarding an early morning flight back to Boston. EEC passports were waved through immigration, but all other passport holder, including U.S. passports, went through a full screening. There were fewer than a hundred people in line at 10:30 p.m. and four immigration inspectors, but the wait was the better part of an hour. Fully a third of the people in line were “sent to health” or were otherwise still sitting on benches when we were cleared through. I had a sense that these people weren’t going to be admitted to the U.K.
Thursday, November 1. In hindsight, it’s easy to understand why I would have been selected for special scrutiny. I was in Phoenix, trying to catch the last flight of the day for Providence on Southwest Airlines. My originating flight out was from Boston and on one airline; my return ticket was a one-way, last-minute purchase on the Internet to a city I had no record of leaving. The gate agent couldn’t have been nicer: “We pick two or three lucky passengers from each flight for extra security checks, and you’re one of the winners!”
The inspection did not begin until my 30-passenger group of boarding passes had been called (I had nearly 45 minutes to dispose of any “weapons” – they didn’t care what I left in the airport; they just didn’t want them on board). I had a full pat-down body search, I had to boot up my computer and run a program, and every piece of electronics was turned on, from electric shaver to cell phone. The security staff was extremely polite but also extremely thorough. My suitcase was checked for false panels and the empty bag was sent through a scanner. All items were rubbed with a wand containing an explosives-sensitive cloth. I was thanked for my cooperation and taken to the head of the boarding line.
Saturday, November 3. My wife and I are headed for Los Angeles from Logan. We are ticketed on United’s first-of-the-day non-stop flights to the west coast. Seven weeks earlier, another early morning L.A.-bound United flight leaving from the same gate was one of the two that hit the World Trade Center. United has given the flight a new number and a slightly different departure time, but the memory of September 11 is especially sharp.
We are in first class; an easy upgrade choice because passenger-starved airlines have doubled the number of miles they offer. Coupled with a bonus award for elite-status fliers, the number of miles required for the upgrade is less than the number of miles that will be credited. As a result, first class is full, coach is perhaps half full. On board, glassware and metal forks and spoons have returned, though the knives are still plastic.
Our return through Heathrow was equally eye-opening. We had, fortunately, scheduled an overnight stop-over in London before boarding an early morning flight back to Boston. EEC passports were waved through immigration, but all other passport holder, including U.S. passports, went through a full screening. There were fewer than a hundred people in line at 10:30 p.m. and four immigration inspectors, but the wait was the better part of an hour. Fully a third of the people in line were “sent to health” or were otherwise still sitting on benches when we were cleared through. I had a sense that these people weren’t going to be admitted to the U.K.
Thursday, November 1. In hindsight, it’s easy to understand why I would have been selected for special scrutiny. I was in Phoenix, trying to catch the last flight of the day for Providence on Southwest Airlines. My originating flight out was from Boston and on one airline; my return ticket was a one-way, last-minute purchase on the Internet to a city I had no record of leaving. The gate agent couldn’t have been nicer: “We pick two or three lucky passengers from each flight for extra security checks, and you’re one of the winners!”
The inspection did not begin until my 30-passenger group of boarding passes had been called (I had nearly 45 minutes to dispose of any “weapons” – they didn’t care what I left in the airport; they just didn’t want them on board). I had a full pat-down body search, I had to boot up my computer and run a program, and every piece of electronics was turned on, from electric shaver to cell phone. The security staff was extremely polite but also extremely thorough. My suitcase was checked for false panels and the empty bag was sent through a scanner. All items were rubbed with a wand containing an explosives-sensitive cloth. I was thanked for my cooperation and taken to the head of the boarding line.
Saturday, November 3. My wife and I are headed for Los Angeles from Logan. We are ticketed on United’s first-of-the-day non-stop flights to the west coast. Seven weeks earlier, another early morning L.A.-bound United flight leaving from the same gate was one of the two that hit the World Trade Center. United has given the flight a new number and a slightly different departure time, but the memory of September 11 is especially sharp.
We are in first class; an easy upgrade choice because passenger-starved airlines have doubled the number of miles they offer. Coupled with a bonus award for elite-status fliers, the number of miles required for the upgrade is less than the number of miles that will be credited. As a result, first class is full, coach is perhaps half full. On board, glassware and metal forks and spoons have returned, though the knives are still plastic.
Dec 5th, 2001 | 05:18 AM
#3
Guest
Posts: n/a
(part 3 of 3)
My seat allows me to observe the changes that have now been implemented. The door to the cockpit now has two full-length bolts on it. Meal service has been pared back severely, even in first class and even on transcontinental flights. There are a new set of economics of running an airline, and days of Champagne before takeoff and choice wines enroute will be a long time in returning, if ever. The crew is more subdued. These are people who have been drafted into a war that they never could have imagined, and they are the new front-line troops. I don’t ask if they knew any of the crew on those ill-fated flights; I’m certain of the answer.
Wednesday, November 7. Our return flight to Boston from San Diego nearly leaves us stranded. Flights are being doubled up, the 2:30 p.m. flight that would put us back in Boston before midnight has been cancelled. We’re resigned to spending an unwanted, extra night in San Diego when the counter agent tells us that a flight out of Denver for Boston will be very late in leaving Denver. Are we interested? Of course we are.
On the flight from Denver to Boston there is a final, telling incident. The couple behind us has been arguing. It is a soft and low argument, but a marital dispute all the same. After an hour we tune it out. But it flairs again when dinner is served and the wife angrily says she doesn’t want any dinner and pushes her tray back at the cabin attendant. The tray lands on the floor.
A few minutes later, the cabin attendants conferred and one used the inter-plane phone system. I did not connect the events of a few minutes earlier with the conference and phone call until we landed. Three Massachusetts state troopers were waiting in the jetway at Logan Airport. When the woman was in the plane’s doorway, one of the attendants said to the troopers, “this is her.” We caught enough of the ensuing conversation to learn that, as part of the airline industry’s new “zero tolerance policy”, her actions had been reported and she would be questioned.
We live in a world that has been changed by horrible events. For those of us who travel, either for a living or for pleasure, those changes force us to alter our comfortable habits. We may learn to accept these changes as part of a “new normalcy,” or we may shrink away from all but the most necessary travel. Either way, we live with a new paradigm; one that forces courtesy on board because any infraction must be reported, and a knowledge that the purchase of a one-way ticket is now something that will be necessarily viewed with suspicion.
My seat allows me to observe the changes that have now been implemented. The door to the cockpit now has two full-length bolts on it. Meal service has been pared back severely, even in first class and even on transcontinental flights. There are a new set of economics of running an airline, and days of Champagne before takeoff and choice wines enroute will be a long time in returning, if ever. The crew is more subdued. These are people who have been drafted into a war that they never could have imagined, and they are the new front-line troops. I don’t ask if they knew any of the crew on those ill-fated flights; I’m certain of the answer.
Wednesday, November 7. Our return flight to Boston from San Diego nearly leaves us stranded. Flights are being doubled up, the 2:30 p.m. flight that would put us back in Boston before midnight has been cancelled. We’re resigned to spending an unwanted, extra night in San Diego when the counter agent tells us that a flight out of Denver for Boston will be very late in leaving Denver. Are we interested? Of course we are.
On the flight from Denver to Boston there is a final, telling incident. The couple behind us has been arguing. It is a soft and low argument, but a marital dispute all the same. After an hour we tune it out. But it flairs again when dinner is served and the wife angrily says she doesn’t want any dinner and pushes her tray back at the cabin attendant. The tray lands on the floor.
A few minutes later, the cabin attendants conferred and one used the inter-plane phone system. I did not connect the events of a few minutes earlier with the conference and phone call until we landed. Three Massachusetts state troopers were waiting in the jetway at Logan Airport. When the woman was in the plane’s doorway, one of the attendants said to the troopers, “this is her.” We caught enough of the ensuing conversation to learn that, as part of the airline industry’s new “zero tolerance policy”, her actions had been reported and she would be questioned.
We live in a world that has been changed by horrible events. For those of us who travel, either for a living or for pleasure, those changes force us to alter our comfortable habits. We may learn to accept these changes as part of a “new normalcy,” or we may shrink away from all but the most necessary travel. Either way, we live with a new paradigm; one that forces courtesy on board because any infraction must be reported, and a knowledge that the purchase of a one-way ticket is now something that will be necessarily viewed with suspicion.
Dec 5th, 2001 | 08:48 AM
#4
Guest
Posts: n/a
I had not flown for more than a year before September 11, but when I did fly in November, one thing I noticed (which may have changed before 9/11) is that there is no announcement when landing of gate numbers for connections; nor are there diagrams in the magazines of the various airports around the country.
