DALLAS – American Airlines flight attendant Julia Simpson was desperate to get back on a plane after terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 turned air travel upside down and changed the worldview about flying on an airplane.
The first plane to hit the World Trade Center building was full of flight attendants from Boston, where Simpson was the local union leader. Not only was she grieving, she and thousands of other employees wondered if this would be the end of American Airlines after two Fort Worth-based airline’s planes were used as weapons in the terrorist attacks.
“There was really a team mentality where we all came together because we had to get this airline up and running again,” she said. “When the flights came back up, American was really good at coordinating flight attendants and getting them to go where they wanted to go, who they wanted to go with.”
Commercial air travel resumed just two days later with airport security checks that would become standard after that day.
The passengers had also joined forces, she said. They were vigilant for suspicious behavior, were more willing to help flight attendants and did not complain about security searches for carton cutters, knives, scissors and weapons that were used to hijack the four planes days earlier.
“They watched this safety demonstration like a hawk – as if they had never seen it before,” said Simpson. “Twenty years later there is none of that anymore.”
Two decades after airplanes united travelers against a common enemy – terrorism, the Covid-19 pandemic pitted passengers on airplanes against passengers, once again leaving flight attendants and pilots behind as first responders to threats at 35,000 feet.
There have been reports of passengers attacking each other for wearing federally mandated masks. Others have attacked flight attendants, such as a California woman who was recently indicted in federal court on charges of beating a flight attendant and knocking out two teeth in an altercation in May. The woman faces more than 30 years in prison.
While airline executives suggested 18 months ago that the Covid-19 crisis would have the same financial impact on the aviation industry as the 2001 terrorist attacks, few could have guessed that it would spark similar levels of fear and concern in the air .
The 2001 terrorist attacks caused the biggest changes in air travel since commercial airlines began flying after World War II. Passengers were now asked to arrive two hours or more early and wait in security lines while federal agents searched bags and scanned bodies for weapons.
Erin Bowen, an aviation psychologist and professor at the University of Texas-Arlington, said the changes in public life after the 11th had people grumbling, but few embraced the new measures.
“There wasn’t a single person out there who said we don’t need security,” Bowen said. “And you had a remarkable political orientation.”
Even airlines, which initially questioned the cost of the new security at airports, were quick to adopt checkpoints as the financial situation cleared, she said. When the aviation industry dealt with the virus, the traveling publics did not turn to the same solutions to fight Covid-19 as they did to fight terrorism.
“Pretty much everyone agrees that blowing up planes was bad and destroying planes was unacceptable,” Bowen said. “You don’t have the same agreement that you have come out of this crisis.”
So far this year, the Federal Aviation Administration has received more than 4,000 complaints about unruly passengers on airplanes. Almost 3,000 of these complaints concerned people who were upset about wearing masks. The agency has launched 143 enforcement proceedings and fined passengers more than $ 1 million.
Julie Hedrick, director of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants at American Airlines, said there was a sharp surge in recalcitrant passengers following the January 6 storm on the U.S. Capitol.
“Everyone was watching out for each other after 9/11,” said Hedrick. “When something happens on an airplane today, other passengers often join the person who is misbehaving.”
And it may be too late to resolve some of this split among passengers.
“I don’t think that will go away when the mask mandate is gone,” she said. The mask mandate now expires on January 18th.
In most cases, unruly passengers and masked scofflaws were isolated on the plane, and often after the door was closed and the plane departed.
“DFW mask compliance was pretty accurate and people seem to understand the security and compliance measures,” said Kriste Jordan Smith, director of Transportation Security Administration at DFW International Airport. “However, we had to acknowledge that there were some problems with people who were not familiar with our system and had not visited our airport in a long time.”
Jordan Smith, who has worked at TSA and the Department of Homeland Security since 2003, said the earlier days of security control programs hadn’t gone anywhere near as smooth either. After the program was implemented, it often took an hour or more to pass through the security lines. Queues can be even longer on the main travel days. Nowadays, even at the busiest airports in the country like the DFW, you rarely find queues that are longer than 20 or 30 minutes.
Still, Jordan Smith said passengers responded well to security protocols after 9/11.
The threat from a uniformed law enforcement officer could be the difference between unruly passengers in the air and calm passengers at security checkpoints, said Steve Karoly, a former TSA administrative assistant who now works with security firm K2.
“If you cause a problem in line, you may never make it to your plane,” Karoly said. “It’s a completely different problem if someone doesn’t stick to it after the plane takes off.”
For many within the aviation industry, there are further parallels between the beginnings of the Covid-19 crisis and the terrorist attacks 20 years ago.
Airlines lost billions to the decline in traffic after the 2001 attacks. While the economy was on the brink of recession prior to September 11, 2001, the terrorist attacks and widespread consequences caused the aviation industry to lose more than 100,000 jobs in the next year.
American Airlines, struggling financially, avoided bankruptcy by forcing workers’ unions to make high pay and performance concessions. Other airlines, including United, Northwest and US Airways, filed for bankruptcy.
Simpson, who flew on after the terrorist attacks, said the economic turmoil inflicted on airlines in 2001 and during the Covid-19 crisis sparked a similar response from crew members.
“We didn’t know if we’d have jobs in a few months,” said Simpson. “But we wanted to do everything we can to help.”
Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said flight attendants gained a new level of respect in 2001.
“People viewed us as first responders,” said Nelson.
Eventually, flight attendants Sandra Bradshaw and CeeCee Lyles joined the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 to overthrow the hijacked cockpit and force the plane to crash in Pennsylvania on a collision course with either the U.S. Capitol or the White House impede.
“It was a national tragedy and we were the focus,” said Nelson. “It was our place of work.”
Nelson, who has been with United for 25 years, said she had friends among the nine crew members killed in United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
In the months following the attacks, Nelson said passengers on board often told her they were ready to help if something went wrong.
While 2001 terrorist attacks became a daily priority for flight attendants, the Covid-19 crisis created a new daily fear for crew members who show up for work. Today the problems are limited to a small number of passengers who are ready to cause a confrontation when they board the plane.
“It’s harder to put on the uniform,” she said. “It’s more difficult when you have to go to work and prepare yourself mentally for it.”
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