David J.
Danto
Business travel
thoughts in my own, personal opinion
eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org 
Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD
Twenty-One Years Ago – September 2022
This past weekend was the 21st
anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the USA.
I’m not sure how many of you know my story of that day – the
non-thrilling, almost close call for me that never was. I’ll share it below and then reflect on where
those terrible events have brought us.
I was going to meet some friends for dinner in Los
Angeles the night of 9/11 - flying out of Newark early in the morning. (I was
only able to attend that dinner because a meeting I was scheduled to attend at
New York’s World Trade Center that day was cancelled/postponed a couple of
weeks earlier.) As those who read my
travel blogs know, I’m a frugal traveler –always looking for a bargain. I had found a great fare to LAX from Miami
(something just over $100 as I recall) and that meant I had to fly to Miami to
connect to LA. A weird route, but one
that saved hundreds.
My very-early 9/11 flight from EWR
to MIA was awesome – I had received an upgrade to first-class, had a nice
flight with a great breakfast, and then it was generally quiet till my
‘sky-pager’ started going off. It was a
work colleague asking me if I was OK. I
replied that I was and asked her what was up.
She said “buildings down, bombs going off everywhere, mass chaos.” Now she and I had worked together at a former
job for Mike Bloomberg, who coincidentally was in a New York City Mayoral
primary election that day, so I thought she was teasing me about that. As we got closer to landing, my news-feed
pages started coming in on the device and I realized she was not kidding.
When the plane landed the pilot said basically to get
our things and leave the airport as soon as possible as “things are strange
right now.” No one from the flight crew
said anything other than that, but when we entered the airport it was like a
ghost-town. One convenience store was
still open and had a TV on, and people were gathered there to watch the
buildings smoldering.
I then learned that a bit earlier many news reporters
had said that the only planes left in the air were hijacked – which of course
sent my wife into a panic. As standard
for those pre-mobile phone days I went to a payphone when I landed and called
her to put her at ease. It was quite a
catharsis for us both. She explained
that she had already contacted a friend of our family who lives in Miami (who also
happens to be a pilot) and asked him to get to the airport and “get David out
of there if he is still alive.” My
friend did meet me there, and I wound up staying with him at his house for
three days.
As no one had any faith in flights returning safely
anytime soon, I booked myself a private cabin with a shower on Amtrak’s Silver
Service from Miami to Newark. (One of
the many side stories here, Amtrak’s website was ‘broken’ – and I’m being kind here –and I never received the
private cabin with the shower – just a tiny private room. I later disputed the charge and got all my
money back as a 9/11 gouge that should never have been.) I made it home to a teary family hug five days
after taking off.
So, what were / are the legacies of that day for
me? First of all, I will never forget
nearly three-thousand people that were not as lucky as I was and didn’t make it
home five days late … or ever. It is not
something I ever take for granted. My ‘not-really near misses’ of a meeting
scheduled in the WTC that day (but cancelled two weeks earlier) and flying the
doomed morning route to LAX from EWR (but going via
Miami) were closer than most people, but not really all that close at all.
For another interesting side story, I have a friend
who realized that Continental was allowing zero-cost changes to any flights for
a period of time, and was also offering $99 flights to domestic locations for
the first week or so when flying was back to get people to start traveling
again. So one by one for his full family
of eight he booked a flight to LAS for the following week at $99, then called
back fifteen minutes later and cancelled it and moved the flight a few months
forward to the date and flight he actually wanted, all at no cost. He booked eight people for a family vacation
to Las Vegas for $99 each – again, one at a time.
The 9/11 impacts to flying in general were and are
much larger. First of all, airports are
now shut-down for all but travelers. The
days of taking kids to an airline club to watch the planes, or going to one to
meet colleagues, are definitely over.
Then, of course, 9/11 brought us the TSA – a total failure of security
based upon the assumption that hassling people will provide just enough illusion of security so that the
air-transportation industry won’t collapse (as I explained back
in 2015.) We live every day with
that awful mistake that wants to pat-down grannies but let’s hidden guns and
fake bombs pass through undetected. In
addition, the 9/11 experiences also brought us the first time (in my memory)
when airlines asked for a cash handout and the US government just gave it to
them with absolutely no strings attached.
They learned that they can always be ‘capitalists
during good times and socialists during bad times.’ All this did was increase the greed of their
management in a service industry that has conveniently forgotten that it should
provide good service. It also brought us
cockpit-door-locks, which was probably the best idea to come out of the
crisis. We had always assumed that
giving-in to a hijacker’s demands was the best option for the safety of
all. 9/11 taught us that the hijackers
may actually be insane and/or religious zealots that are ready to die and kill
everyone else in the process, so giving-in was no longer the wisest course of action.
I can only hope that there are people designing better
intruder management systems for aircraft of the future that can either
take-over the flying of the plane remotely, and/or in extreme cases, use some
form of safe knock-out gas (like in Star
Trek) to disable the passenger area of a plane while keeping the pilots
awake. However, knowing the greed of the
airline industry, I doubt any major changes (that don’t earn the management and
investors money) are even a passing thought.
So, as another anniversary of that horrific day passes,
I implore you to remember those events and mourn the people and processes we
all lost. Feel the tragedy and heartbreak
(that are still raw for so many families) which comes from nearly
three-thousand souls needlessly perishing.
Then, realize that COVID19 has already taken over a million Americans
and over six and a half million souls worldwide. That’s over
three-thousand 9/11s worth of mostly preventable deaths. Wear your damn masks and get the vaccine and
the new Bivalent boosters ASAP (like I did last week.)
This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal
opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.
Copyright 2022 David Danto
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As always, feel free to write and comment, question or
disagree. Hearing from the traveling
community is always a highlight for me.
Thanks!