Travelers Take to the Skies Again

"Security! Woman approaching the stage here!" shouted the folk singer performing at Kitty O'Shea's pub inside the Logan Airport Hilton.

The curly-haired entertainer's attempt at levity was appreciated on a night starved for festivity as the woman approached with nothing more terrorizing than a song request.

The television news above the bar flashed brightly with murderers'-row photographs of terrorist suspects. But the TV remained muted as the folk singer broke into a lyric about how terrorists so bedeviled an Irish town that "the ****ed barbed wire gets higher and higher."

Much the same point was made by SWAT team members strolling through the airport with heavy weapons in hand as passengers were put through double and triple electronic screening.

"We got an awful lot of nuts coming into Logan," a local man said, sipping a beer at Kitty O'Shea's, occasionally eyeing the TV crawl of silent headlines (F-16's scramble. . . . Up to 6,000 National Guardsmen to protect U.S. airports. . . .).

"This is probably the safest place to be," a woman responded litanylike across her glass of stout to no one in particular. She was gauging the mounting, near-theatrical displays of security at this airport, which, in the evolving wartime vernacular, had been ground zero once removed for airplane terrorists passing through unnoticed on a mission that was to be horrifically successful.

The pub klatch exemplifies how ordinary Americans are returning to the air once more across the nation in a high-octane mix of wariness and resignation, patriotic resolve and personal doubts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/01/na...rtner=MOREOVER

NBTA Survey Predicts Recovery in Business Travel; Security, Airfare Discounts, and Elimination of Restrictions Cited as Crucial to Recovery

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011001/dcm047_1.html

Flying overcoming fear

Across the country, Americans are flying again (except at Washington’s Reagan National airport)

http://www.msnbc.com/news/636156.asp


Americans Flying Again After Attacks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 12:28 p.m. ET


WASHINGTON (AP) -- More people are taking to the skies again, encountering tougher security measures even as some aviation experts say more needs to be done.

The Federal Aviation Administration is again allowing passengers to check their bags at curbside in some cases, albeit with tighter security than before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said Sunday.

The Air Transport Association, a trade group for the major U.S. airlines, said preliminary estimates showed 665,714 passengers flew on domestic flights Thursday, compared with 518,765 the Thursday before. The flights were 46 percent full on average, up from 39 percent a week earlier.

In September 2000, airliners carried around 1 million passengers a day and were around 70 percent full.

There were no numbers on weekend flights, but airport and airline officials said it appeared more people were flying.

Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation, said there were longer lines at security checkpoints at both O'Hare and Midway airports.

``That's a good sign,'' Bond said. ``Increased lines mean there are more travelers regaining their confidence in air travel.''

Airline passengers are seeing greater security at airports and are being encouraged to arrive two hours before departures. The National Guard has troops patrolling major airports and more strenuous checks of passengers and baggage are being conducted everywhere.

Despite extensive publicity, passengers continue to try to take banned items aboard. At Los Angeles International Airport, about 5,000 items a day, ranging from large aerosol cans and nail clippers to hammers, butcher knives and realistic-looking replicas of guns, are being taken away, spokeswoman Nancy Suey Castles said. ``We're baffled by the types of things people are still trying to carry on into the passenger cabin,'' she said.

Airports including Washington Dulles, Houston's Bush Intercontinental and O'Hare in Chicago are allowing passengers of certain airlines to check their baggage at the curbs under strict security procedures.

Curbside check-in was banned when airports reopened following the attacks. FAA spokesman William Shumann said the agency is approving requests from individual airlines and airports to allow curbside check-in if the tighter security measures are followed. He declined to identify the measures, citing security needs.

Meanwhile, former American Airlines Chairman Robert Crandall called for airline passenger reservations to be checked against law enforcement lists of potential terrorists. Reservation systems should be tied in with the FBI, CIA and other agencies, he said on CBS' ``Face the Nation.''

Two of the terrorists who hijacked the four commercial airliners on Sept. 11, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaq Alhamzi, were placed on a terrorist watch list last summer but were already in the United States and were never picked up. This way, the airline could have alerted law enforcement authorities that they had bought tickets.

``What I think we need is an integrated security system from stem to stern,'' Crandall said.

Duane Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, told CBS that all airports, including those that handle only cargo flights such as Federal Express or United Parcel Service, should have the same level of security as major passenger facilities.

Also, top Bush administration officials said they favor reopening Reagan National Airport, the only commercial airport still closed, with enhanced security. Top Bush aides were meeting Monday afternoon with officials from Virginia, where the airport is located...

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nati...-Airlines.html

Rational and Irrational Fears Combine in Terrorism's Wake

The familiar became strange, the ordinary perilous.

On Sept. 11, Americans entered a new and frightening geography, where the continents of safety and danger seemed forever shifted.

Is it safe to fly? Will terrorists wage germ warfare? Where is the line between reasonable precaution and panic?

Jittery, uncertain and assuming the worst, many people have answered these questions by forswearing air travel, purchasing gas masks and radiation detectors, placing frantic calls to pediatricians demanding vaccinations against exotic diseases or rushing out to fill prescriptions for Cipro, an antibiotic most experts consider an unnecessary defense against anthrax.

Psychologists who study how people perceive potential hazards say such responses are not surprising, given the intense emotions inspired by the terrorist attacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/he...gy/02FEAR.html

Five governors ended a two-day swing through the nation's stricken economic and federal capitals Monday with a plea to Americans to defeat terror by restoring the nation's commerce and tourism.

``There's still a greater danger that someone will be struck by lightning or picked up and carried off by a tornado than they will be personally the victim of a terrorist attack,'' Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., said.

The governors joined District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams for what was billed as a ``Back to Business'' tour. The bipartisan outing was designed to help restore the confidence of the traveling public after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington.

The politicians warned of potential damage to the nation's economy if people don't start traveling, shopping and vacationing again.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nati...Governors.html

[This message has been edited by doc (edited 10-01-2001).]