We Will Fly Again

"This is no tough-guy boast or irrational bragging or a rhetorical flourish. This is a simple, quiet statement of fact.

We will fly again.

We will fly again because our lives and our livelihoods depend on it. We will fly again because there is something deep in the American psyche, some distant distillation of Manifest Destiny, that compels us to travel and explore. We will fly again because, when you think about it, flying is the ultimate expression of our free society and everything we cherish.

And we will fly again because that is exactly what the terrorists don't want us to do.

The aim of terrorists is to frighten us and to get our attention. The goal of terrorism is to create havoc, inflict grievous bodily harm, destroy property and disrupt our economic security. The purpose of terror is to generate publicity for its cause.

Terrorism won all those battles Tuesday with their horrific hijackings and almost inconceivable use of passenger jets as weapons. There are no words to adequately describe the fear and the death and the havoc the terrorists have caused. Hundreds of our fellow flyers are dead and thousands more have died. The financial toll will be in the billions and our economic system will be shaken. Buildings are gone, lives are destroyed, and America will never be the same again.

But terrorism has still another goal: to change the pattern and the fabric of our daily lives. That is the war. Terrorists want to make us live our lives a different way because, if we change the way we live our daily lives, they win.

That is the war we cannot allow terrorism to win. That is why we will fly again.

Perhaps I use the word "we" too cavalierly. Because, no matter how well we know each other, I guess I have no right to speak for anyone but myself.

I flew on Sunday and am sitting at my laptop in a hotel room in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon because the airports were closed this morning and my flight was cancelled. But I will fly tomorrow if the airports are open and my flight is operating. I won't let the terrorists tell me how to live my life, where I can go, and whether I can fly.

I am afraid, because you cannot see what you have seen on television these past 24 hours and not be afraid. I am angry, because I am a New Yorker and some lunatics have ripped a hole in my city. I am furious, because I am an American and these shadowy *******s have attacked my capital and my country. I am a frequent flyer, and these people have assaulted my life and my livelihood. I am despondent, because I have lost friends and acquaintances in this tragedy. And I am deep in mourning because there are no degrees of separation in this catastrophe. Anyone's loss is my loss.

But I will fly again because I can't imagine a world where terrorism wins this war.

You and I have been together in this little slice of cyberspace for almost four years now. On some levels, we have talked about all this many times before. About the fear and the doubt that we stuff at the bottom of our carry-on bag because this is what we do. About the lies we tell ourselves and our families about the danger. About the bravado we practice and the studious denials we adopt like armor to get us through another day, another flight, another tragedy.

I have written that every crash diminishes us. I have written that every one of us knows that we fly, and, sometimes, some of us die. But I have no snappy catchphrases as I sit here in a hotel room in San Francisco waiting to fly, wanting to fly, because I can't think of any other way to tell the terrorists they may win some battles, but they cannot win the war.

In point of absolute fact, all I can tell you is what I know for myself: I will fly again. And all I can tell you is what I believe after four years of talking with you and swapping tales: We all will fly again.

Meanwhile, while we wait, go do something life affirming. Find your good book and search for comfort. Pray. Hug your friends and families. Cry if you must. Smile if you can. Remember our fellow flyers and the innocent New Yorkers and Washingtonians who died yesterday.

Me? I'm flying tomorrow. It's not a boast or a brag or a rhetorical flourish. It's a simple, quiet statement of fact."

-Joe B.

http://misc.biztravel.com/CPageUtil_...ion=BT3&ssnid=

We'll go forward from this moment

"It's my job to have something to say.

They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable *******.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just ****ed your cause.

Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.

Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals...."

BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
[email protected]

http://www.miami.com/herald/special/...ocs/008039.htm

In for the Long Haul

omorrow, Americans will try to return to normal. This is a resilient country, and even in New York City, most citizens have already chosen to go back to their regular routines as quickly as possible. In general, we are not a people that spends much time looking back. "Move on" is practically the national mantra.

This is commendable and indeed necessary in view of the alternative: a capitulation to fear and despair that the terrorists must surely have hoped for. There has been no finer rebuke to their pretensions than America's determination to press on.

But the normal we are returning to is different from what we knew a week ago. Tuesday's tragedies were not only unifying but clarifying. Americans now live a state of war against an irrational, vengeful and elusive enemy. And if we are to win, we will have to become used to the idea that we are in this for the long haul. Coming to terms with that new reality, winning this war, will require discipline, stamina and sacrifice.

For years now, younger Americans have yearned to prove that they are as patriotic and as capable of self-sacrifice as the Greatest Generation. The commitment made after Pearl Harbor was both larger and simpler than the one we are being asked to undertake. Back then, the aim was clear, the path was obvious, and the sense of solidarity was natural for a country that had to focus single-mindedly on winning World War II.

Our shared mission, to eradicate terrorism, is a noble one. The rewards for victory would be immense � a safer world and a planetary commitment to cooperation and tolerance. But our individual tasks are vague. President Bush is unlikely to reinstate the draft or impose rationing. We will go about our ordinary jobs as before. Buying consumer goods is not only possible, it has been elevated to a virtual act of patriotism to aid a flagging economy. Nevertheless, we will need to make sacrifices that are all the more difficult because they are unseen and require more patience than heroism.

American resilience, which allows us to bounce back from setbacks, forgive old enemies and rewrite our national story for every generation, has a downside. Some may call it a short national attention span. Yesterday's crusade is tomorrow's inconvenience. The gas crisis that was supposed to commit us to energy conservation quickly gave way to the S.U.V. era. People who willingly stand in lines to get through airport security this month may not be so understanding by the Thanksgiving holidays.

Terrorist hijackings or airline explosions in the past have led to periods of tighter airline security, followed quickly by periods of relaxation and colossal carelessness. What should be clear now is that the days of relatively unhindered air travel, with curbside check-ins and all the rest, are almost surely gone and that a period of considerable inconvenience is upon us.

Our politics are going to have to change as well. It has been a very long time since American officials told their constituents that they would have to make some sacrifices for the common good. But that will almost surely be the case if we are going to transform our defense and intelligence systems from cold war monoliths to agile, inventive organizations that can detect and defeat terrorists. Some obsolete bases will have to be closed, and defense contracts that provide profits and jobs to key Congressional districts will have to go by the wayside. The laundry list of promises candidates made in the last election will have to be trimmed.

Perhaps most painful of all, America may have to give up the post-Vietnam illusion that it is possible to fight wars with few casualties. Our success in the Persian Gulf and even our limited achievements in the Balkans created the illusion that American military technology is sophisticated enough to be used in combat without putting soldiers in harm's way. But what we have actually been enjoying is an extended string of luck. Last week, the message came through loud and clear that luck can run out...

http://www.newyorktimes.com/2001/09/...on/16SUN1.html

Old Ruses, New Barbarians

"The most famous story of the Western world, the prototype of all tales of human conflict, Barbara Tuchman writes in "The March of Folly," is the Wooden Horse.

Despite repeated warnings, the Trojans relaxed their guard and let their fortress be breached.

After the Trojans feasted and fell asleep, the hidden Greeks emerged. "Mad with murder," Homer wrote, they wielded their swords and hacked men and women to "the last thrust."

The moral: Invaders can also win by cunning, deception and their adversaries' complacency and trust.

We are chilled as we learn more about how the Middle East terrorists mad with murder breached our walls and lived brazenly among us for years, mocking our hospitality, exploiting our freedoms. Training at our flight schools and at Gold's Gym; casing Logan Airport; loudly warning that "America's going to see bloodshed" while spending up to $300 apiece on lap dances and drinks at a Daytona Beach strip club, where they left behind a copy of the Koran.

Last spring, when the president was letting Dick Cheney run the country, he also put him in charge of coordinating a domestic response to terrorism, saying that the threat of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons was "very real" but "not immediate." No one ever heard about that group again.

On "Meet the Press" Sunday, the vice president conceded that the unspeakable air attack had caught the government by surprise, even though "there had been information coming in that a big operation was planned."

It's hard to know why our government was so clueless.

The tactics of warriors in the mountains of the treacherous Khyber Pass, where we may soon send American troops to war, no longer include such medieval barbarities as cannibalism and giving the breasts of captured virgins to senior Mongol commanders.

But the guileful guerrilla methods of Central Asian warriors have stayed the same since the 13th century. Consider this description by Peter Hopkirk in "The Great Game": "The sheer speed of their horse- borne archers, and the brilliance and unfamiliarity of their tactics, caught army after army off balance. Old ruses, long used in tribal warfare, enabled them to rout greatly superior numbers at negligible loss to themselves. Time and again their feigned flight from the battlefield lured seasoned commanders to their doom."

Why were we so blind? Osama bin Laden recently made threats in the London press. Islamic zealots have repeatedly shown their willingness to get to heaven � a heaven where 70 virgins await each "martyr" � by committing homicide even as they committed suicide. They already tried to topple the World Trade Center eight years earlier. Much of the Arab street abhors the United States. The kamikaze pilots during World War II showed how easy it is to turn a plane into a weapon. Middle East C.I.A. analysts, not even required to speak Arabic, should at least be expected to have as much imagination as Hollywood screenwriters..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/opinion/19DOWD.html

----

NBTA Survey Reveals Future of Business Travel

In response to last week's tragedy, corporations and their corporate travel managers are speaking out about the future of business travel. In a focus group survey conducted by the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) today, corporate travel managers revealed the actions their corporations are taking in reaction to safety and economic concerns in the industry.

According to today's survey, the majority of corporations are not suspending travel in light of recent events. 77% have not suspended domestic travel and 66% have not suspended international travel.

NBTA's survey indicates that 58% of corporate travel managers say their companies will reduce travel, while 23% were unsure and 19% were not planning on reducing travel. Of those reducing travel, 65% are doing so immediately. However, comments received by NBTA indicated that some travel reduction initiatives are the result not of last week's terrorist attacks, but of previous cost-cutting measures.

Other survey results indicate that corporations are looking for alternatives to traditional business travel. For instance, of those surveyed:


* 88% Say They Will Increase the Use of Video Conferencing
* 65% Say They Will Increase the Use of Car Rentals on Short-haul Trips


``Corporations are being realistic about their need to travel,'' concluded McInerney. ``There is definitely more caution out there, but travel remains an essential part of doing business in the United States.''

Comments from survey respondents reinforce McInerney's assertion:

* "Employees have been advised to use good business judgment in making
travel plans."
* "We won't be putting our travelers at risk, but we will need to get the
job done."
* "We must get back to the business at hand ... if we don't, they win!"

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010919/dcw028_1.html

[This message has been edited by doc (edited 09-19-2001).]

What unspeakable effrontery! Did The New York Times write a single editorial admonishing the Government to beware of such a threat? Fact is, it was a brilliant surprise attack.

The good news is they have lost the element of surprise... for a long, long time. While the damage and death toll were horrible, we have some solace in the fact that our Government and military are largely intact and highly motivated. We have the cooperation of almost all of the civilized world.

There will be additional costs, but we WILL prevail.

Yes, we will revail, QL!

---

Airlines to Lay Off Thousands of Workers
As Business-Travel Bookings Plummet

Major airlines moved to furlough thousands of workers as business-travel bookings have dropped to a dribble and reservations for leisure trips have almost disappeared following last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Wednesday, UAL Corp.'s United Airlines said 20,000 of its 98,000 employees will be laid off. AMR Corp.'s American Airlines said it will slash at least 20,000 of its 138,000 jobs. The cuts have been expected in light of last week's unprecedented grounding of the air-travel system and passengers' reluctance to return to the skies. But it didn't make the result any easier. Don Carty, American's chairman and chief executive, called the experience "heartbreaking." Further, he said, the urgency of the situation prevented the company from offering other options, such as early-retirement plans.

Continental Airlines previously said it would furlough 12,000 workers. Continental President Larry Kellner said groups and conventions are canceling reservations, planes are only 40% full, and the airline, which had $2.4 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter last year, expects only half that much in the final three months of this year. New reservations are just 30% to 50% of normal levels, Mr. Kellner said.

National Airlines found one solution: It offered trips for as little as $1 one way.

http://public.wsj.com/sn/y/SB1000930651384756400.html

The Case for War, and the Case for Restraint

To the Editor:

Re "Bush Orders Heavy Bombers Near Afghans; Demands Bin Laden Now, Not Negotiations" (front page, Sept. 20):

We can now see that the life of a country or any other international organization is nasty, brutish and short. America has friends and enemies, but when push comes to shove, we have only ourselves to defend our hard-won freedom.

We must now depend on the people who will do the dirty work of striking back. Pilots, diplomats, bankers, computer technicians and fearless politicians will all be needed, and we must support them without reserve.

Our strength and longevity as a free country hinge on our ability to make the life of terrorist organizations and the countries that support them nasty, brutish and especially short. Let's go to war.

JOHN PAINTER
Whitehouse Station, N.J.
Sept. 20, 2001
�
To the Editor:

Re "Bush Orders Heavy Bombers Near Afghans; Demands Bin Laden Now, Not Negotiations" (front page, Sept. 20): The military should not reveal its plans to strike at the enemy. The public and especially Osama bin Laden do not need to know the details of our troop movements. During World War II, we had a slogan, "Loose lips sink ships." Can't we keep a few secrets?

HELEN FEALY
New York, Sept. 20, 2001
�
To the Editor:

Re "Bush's Advisers Split on Scope of Retaliation" (front page, Sept. 20):

Let us hope that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his supporters, who are seeking time to build an international coalition, prevail.

Strong, damaging attacks would simply unify Muslim countries against us. Instead, we can use this horrific act to unify Americans and the majority of Muslims, who do not use the Koran to justify the acts of a power seeker intent on world domination. Osama bin Laden will be defeated only if his own Islamic world turns against him.

Courage sometimes requires us to be smart as well as brave.

NICKY WOLF
Tiburon, Calif., Sept. 20, 2001
�
To the Editor:

William Safire (column, Sept. 20) is exactly right: we should use radio to get the truth directly to the Afghan people. The Afghans do not know that their starvation is the result of their dictators' efforts to protect Osama bin Laden. We allow the Taliban to monopolize all information available to Afghan men, women and children.

We made the same mistake for years with Slobodan Milosevic, enabling him to have exclusive access to the ears, eyes and minds of the people of Serbia. Radio, loud and clear, is inexpensive and effective. But if we are to succeed in building opposition to terrorism, we must pay as much attention to launching ideas as we do to launching bombs...

and so on...

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/op...rchpv=nytToday

---

Many varied opinions!

---

Many Travelers on Airlines Appeal for Tighter Security

Despite efforts by government agencies and the airlines to make flying safer in the aftermath of last week's hijackings and terrorist attacks, many passengers say the authorities have still not done enough to improve airport security.

At large airports around the country, like those in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, detection devices and security officials have not recognized items like scissors and syringes that could be used as weapons or stopped passengers with phony tickets, interviews showed.

All airports have begun putting into effect new federal security measures, and their presence is evident everywhere, including additional X-ray screenings, body pat-downs and multiple identification checks from the ticket counter to security checkpoints to the departure gates.

But so many air passengers have complained in recent days of lapses and uneven application of measures that the Federal Aviation Administration began asking visitors to its Web site today to send in their own suggestions by e-mail, fax and telephone "on how to improve aviation."

"The call volume since last week's tragic events has been considerable," the agency conceded.

"We've done a lot, but a lot more work needs to be done," Paul Takemoto, an agency spokesman, said, acknowledging the need for additional security measures and a more even application of them.

Mr. Takemoto declined to discuss security issues at any specific airport, saying, "We don't want to create targets, and we don't want people thinking some airports may be more vulnerable than others."

For now, that appears to be the case. Interviews with dozens of people who have flown in the last week revealed all sorts of leaks at airports or at least enough to suggest that in many places travelers are subjected to no more scrutiny than they had been before the recent hijackings.

Robin Frank, who flew this week from Los Angeles to Kennedy Airport in New York, said she intentionally carried a 5 1/2-inch-long scissors through airport metal detectors as her personal safety gauge to see whether she would board the plane. After the item was not detected, she called airport personnel's attention to the scissors.

Kara L. Nichols said she returned home after flying from Tortola in the Caribbean, through San Juan, P.R., to Baltimore-Washington International with a Swiss Army knife in her backpack that eluded detection both in Tortolla and San Juan.

"It just frightens me that with all of the alerts and coming only a few days after events of last week that they weren't checking any harder," said Ms. Nichols, 37, an Internet executive.

A flight attendant for United Airlines, who would not let her name be used, arriving for work today at O'Hare Airport in Chicago said she was alarmed to see that United employees, not security personnel or police officers, were checking the identification of passengers and that passing through security checkpoints, her bags were not thoroughly inspected, allowing her to carry through a pair of hair-cutting shears, nail clippers and a nail file.

Tim Pratt, who arrived at Kennedy on a United flight from San Francisco, is a diabetic. He said the 10 syringes he carried went undiscovered by security personnel.

A New York Times reporter leaving Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta made it through all security check points by showing only an itinerary he had typed. Another Times reporter leaving the Miami airport told a US Airways agent that she was carrying two flammable items that are now prohibited on flights, nail polish and polish remover. The agent, she said, told her: "Don't worry about it. Just see if they catch it at the security checkpoint..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/na...rchpv=nytToday


Fighting Terrorism on a Global Front

...Terrorism threatens every society. As the world takes action against it, we have all been reminded of the need to address the conditions that permit the growth of such hatred and depravity. We must confront violence, bigotry and hatred even more resolutely. The United Nations' work must continue as we address the ills of conflict, ignorance, poverty and disease.

Doing so will not remove every source of hatred or prevent every act of violence. There are those who will hate and who will kill even if every injustice is ended. But if the world can show that it will carry on, that it will persevere in creating a stronger, more just, more benevolent and more genuine international community across all lines of religion and race, then terrorism will have failed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/opinion/21ANNA.html



[This message has been edited by doc (edited 09-21-2001).]

Airline employees say traumatized since attacks

Amid a flurry of passengers at the nation's second busiest airport, psychologist Fred Dornback sits on a folding chair in a makeshift office counseling airline employees about their worst fear -- that last week's hijack attacks on the United States could happen again.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010922/n21120125_1.html

Flying is still the safest form of travel--I've been back in the air--It will take much, much more to disuade me.

---


"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

-FDR, 3/4/'33

The Cowards and Traitors Among Us

One day soon, when our hearts have begun to heal, we will speak about the unspeakable events of September 11. For years to come, when we fully comprehend what we have done, we will lament our government�s disastrous decision to make a gift of $5 billion in tax dollars to the airlines. Before all that, though, we must address the cowards and the traitors within our own family of business travelers.

http://www.zyworld.com/brancatelli/branc.htm


Worldwide Outlook for Tourism Poor

Delegates and speakers at the conference of the World Tourism Organization today offered bleak new estimates of the immediate impact of the terrorist attacks in the United States on tourism worldwide.

Nearly two-thirds of tourists booked on flights from Western Europe to the United States, and just under half those traveling to America from South Korea and Japan, canceled their reservations after the attack, according to Harsha Varma, the group's regional representative for Asia and the Pacific.

Most delegates at the convention were alarmed about the probable effect of armed conflict on their industry. But Douglas Frechtling of George Washington University, who presented figures on the falloff in hotel bookings in the United States, saw a small silver lining in military action "to show we are attacking the source of terror."

Grim tales of vanishing business were common among delegates at coffee breaks, dinners and receptions. Didier Bourgoin, a French delegate, said 11,000 people had canceled flight reservations out of France within hours of the attacks, and the bookings for October are now 100,000 below normal. "French travel agents are in a waiting mode," he said. "If you are at war in a few days, you don't know what will happen."

Pauline Sheldon, professor at the school of travel industry management at the University of Hawaii, said that tourist bookings there had fallen 35 percent, less steeply than at some mainland destinations like New Orleans or Orlando, Fla., where half the expected visitors were absent. Hawaii "is like a little refuge," she said. "People feel safe there."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/27/bu...ss/27TOUR.html

[This message has been edited by doc (edited 09-28-2001).]

Air Travel: Routine No More

The skycaps have disappeared from many of the nation's airports, along with those sophisticated electronic check-in machines that spat out a boarding pass and made it possible to breeze from the curb to the gate without talking to anyone.

Gift shops in many airports have stopped selling scissors, nail clippers, eyeglass-repair kits and anything else that might be converted into a weapon.

On board, there are no more steak knives in first class. And perhaps that's just as well, since on many flights, there is no more steak. Meal service is being curtailed or abandoned by airlines that warn they are being forced to the brink of bankruptcy by the collapse in passenger traffic.

Since Sept. 11, the rules of air travel and airport safety in the United States have been rewritten, almost certainly forever.

What tens of millions of Americans had come to take for granted � a fast, safe if sometimes infuriating mode of travel for any journey over a few hundred miles � is not being taken for granted anymore.

For many Americans, airline travel had lost all glamour years ago; with deregulation and dirt-cheap fares, it became routine, almost as common as riding a bus or subway. But since Sept. 11, what seemed routine now seems dangerous, freighted with terrifying images of hijacked airliners sent crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/travel/SECURE.html

REMEMBER THAT WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

The world has become a frightening place for Americans. If you travel abroad in the coming months, remember that many of the people you meet are willing to share in your sadness and your fears. And perhaps this
spirit of sharing will linger.

http://rd.SmarterLiving.com/da092701.11

THE DISASTER'S IMMEDIATE IMPACT

What's in store for travelers over the next few months? It's far too early to come up with a precise scenario, but I can make a few
reasonably good guesses. First, decide quickly if you're going to fly again within the next 12 months. Chances are, flying a year from now will be neither riskier nor safer than it is as you read this.

http://rd.SmarterLiving.com/da092701.12



[This message has been edited by doc (edited 09-30-2001).]

Yes, most of us will fly again. We will, we have to, we must. Flying is still safer than driving, riding a train or operating a boat on a Saturday afternoon when so many boat operators are drunk.

We will fly to do our jobs, go on a cruise, see Europe, go on a safari in Africa, walk the Great Wall of China and visit our family members who are far away.

We will win this so-called war. We know how to do it. As has been said so often, the sleeping giant is now awake.

What we can do now is buy tickets!

Yes, we will fly again, but much less;


Why fly less?

- because the first 15 rows of the parking garages are blocked - silly

- security would not let me through with nail clippers

- at Montgomery, AL airport, they go though your trunk if you want to use short term parking. Silly

- They make it harder to get on the plane by making everyone go to the main ticket counter

- You can not sit at the curb waiting to pick someone up

- You are at risk of having just about anything confiscated at the checkin

- they are limiting or eliminating food service

- I can no longer take my little cork screw on a trip with me

- You can no longer meet someone at the gate, or eve escort your Mother to the gate.

- At LAX you have to park in a field and take a shuttle to the main terminal

- We can not even get National airport open.
The Federal Government is working very hard to finish off the airlines as we know it. And lets be honest folks, none of these rules make any sense.

"Sanity has left the terminal"

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).]