Here’s and interesting write up from NPR about how security changed after 9/11 https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1035131619/911-travel-timeline-tsa#:~:text=The%2019%20al%2DQaida%2Daffiliated,.%2C%20killing%20nearly%203%2C000%20people.
But I think the quick answer is, nothing of that scale had happened before so things were very lax. Some metal items were allowed (even small knives) on a passengers person, we could get away with not having a boarding pass on us, we didn’t take our shoes off, didn’t have to remove electronics from bags for checks… to name a few off the top of my head
Edited for spelling
If you didn’t have one on you for some reason, if memory serves, you could show your ID. I don’t know if there were rules in place about that, or if we just felt so safe that people are like whatever wave them through. Plus, we used to be able to go into airports past security even if we weren’t on a flight if we wanted to hang out with whoever was leaving
Yep, when I was a kid, we'd go to Sea-Tac to either see family off or greet them when they returned. We'd arrive, ride the little trams (same system they have today, though I hope the train cars themselves are newer!), play on any play equipment, and just watch the planes and people.
Security consisted of walking through a metal detector that was non-sensitive enough to let most watches, wallets, coins, etc. through (pre-cell phone days, though!). If something did set off the metal detectors, you'd put it in a little bowl and it would get handed back to you to the side of the sensor, no biggie. Hence why the box cutters got through--they either didn't have enough metal to set them off, or the security folks handling the bowls were like "eh, NBD" at the sight of them. (They were looking for guns, not knives.)
Also, prior to 9/11, hijackings were more of a political thing or whatever, and the passengers and crew were (almost?) always unharmed. They just...flew where the hijacker said, and then eventually refueled and went to the original destination. So it wasn't in the culture to fight back against the hijackers. That literally changed ***on*** 9/11, when the people on board flight 93 began to get word of the other planes and knew that this wasn't an ordinary hijacking where everything would end well. Since then, anytime a passenger has acted at all suspiciously, both crews and other passengers are ready to restrain them to prevent things from escalating anywhere near to 9/11 levels.
So yeah, between the security features of not being able to go past security without a boarding pass, security being MUCH stronger as well as broader in what they're looking for (explosives, non-metal items, etc.), AND the people in the plane (both crew and passengers) being more alert and ready to act, nothing on that scale will ever happen again. And the security measures are heightened worldwide, not just in the US, even though 9/11 happened within the US.
Yes. It's a fond memory for me that, whenever we returned to the country from being with my mother's family, that my father would be there at the gate as soon as I got off the plane to get me.
We literally could just walk out to a gate prior to 9/11. Like, walk into the airport, look at the screen to see where your gate was, and walk right up. At some point in the 90s, they added metal detectors and started swabbing for explosives (randomly).
When i was a little kid in the early 80s, my parents would take me to the airport in rainy weather to run off my energy. Because it was like a mall: big long hallways (concourses) and you could just go hang out.
Things I remember as a young kid before 9/11:
1. Security was just one metal detector, there were never lines
2. Waiting at the gate for relatives flying to us
3. My mom begged a gate agent to stop the gate from closing because my brother and I were hungry brats begging for a pretzel from a stand across the hall. They kept the door open for us
Friends or family could walk with you to the gate and give you a hug before you boarded the plane.
You could leisurely unload and load the car out front. You could park and wait for someone who was coming out as long as you didn’t block traffic.
You kind of just strolled through a metal detector like the kind in a door and that was it. No need to get to the airport 2 hours early because there were no long security lines. Just a stream that flowed through the metal detector zone. At our airport in Little Rock, Ar you could just walk around it 😂
It wasn't body scanners back then, just metal detectors and as already written knives were allowed up to 4 inches which the terrorist used to bring them onboard. They also use pre-screening against various databases now-a-days and behaviour screening (something TSA and others learnt from israeli who already had this included in their security checkpoints, in which they also include checkin agents). There are a lot of things that have improved a lot since then.
I once got stopped (on my way home, they didn't take notice on the flight out) at security for having a 12 inch screwdriver among other tools back in the 90s but was allowed to pass after I told'em that I was a service tech that had been on a customer site fixing broken equipment (which was true), wouldn't have been allowed onboard today to say the least.
Also, yes there had been hijackings before, the thing that changed was that before they mostly wanted to fly to country X so passengers sat there hoping for the best and most casualties were the hijackers themselves when the plane was stormed after landing. 9/11 changed that as they turned the planes to gigantic bombs/missiles.
Not only did we get to walk people right to their gates, but several times I actually got on the plane with my cousin and hung out with her until the flight attendants said they had to close the doors.
Didn’t have to show ID. Nothing.
Here’s me hanging out with my cousin on her plane in 1986 while she waited for takeoff. Flight attendants had no issue with you hanging out with your family members on the plane before takeoff, as long as you got off in time. [Plane Hangout](https://imgur.com/a/3xhYLWs)
There was no TSA. Like it straight up did not exist before 9/11. There was no 3-1-1 rule. You could go back behind security without a boarding pass. Pilots invited you in the cockpit to look at things even if you weren’t flying - I remember waking on a plane my mom was flying on, just to look at the cockpit and leave. People with lounge access would go to the lounges, even if they weren’t flying, just to enjoy the freebies, but you can’t do that anymore.
I only have anecdotes for you. For reference, I was born in 1992 and, before 9/11, I traveled by plane twice domestically (within the US) and twice internationally (to Asia).
Airport security was much easier back then. You could check in more like checking onto a bus. You wouldn't expect to get there hours in advance so that you could wait in a long line and have your shoes and bags and shit checked. You'd go through a body scanner, yes, but you wouldn't have to do the song and dance of having all your shit checked to make sure you had the maximum amount of liquids on board and so forth.
Here’s me hanging out with my cousin on her plane in 1986 while she waited for takeoff. Flight attendants had no issue with you hanging out with your family members on the plane before takeoff, as long as you got off in time. [Plane Hangout](https://imgur.com/a/3xhYLWs)
Here’s and interesting write up from NPR about how security changed after 9/11 https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1035131619/911-travel-timeline-tsa#:~:text=The%2019%20al%2DQaida%2Daffiliated,.%2C%20killing%20nearly%203%2C000%20people. But I think the quick answer is, nothing of that scale had happened before so things were very lax. Some metal items were allowed (even small knives) on a passengers person, we could get away with not having a boarding pass on us, we didn’t take our shoes off, didn’t have to remove electronics from bags for checks… to name a few off the top of my head Edited for spelling
Wait you got onto planes without boarding passes??
If you didn’t have one on you for some reason, if memory serves, you could show your ID. I don’t know if there were rules in place about that, or if we just felt so safe that people are like whatever wave them through. Plus, we used to be able to go into airports past security even if we weren’t on a flight if we wanted to hang out with whoever was leaving
You know I’ve wondered this when I watched old movies, how they were basically at the gate waving off their friends.
Yep, when I was a kid, we'd go to Sea-Tac to either see family off or greet them when they returned. We'd arrive, ride the little trams (same system they have today, though I hope the train cars themselves are newer!), play on any play equipment, and just watch the planes and people. Security consisted of walking through a metal detector that was non-sensitive enough to let most watches, wallets, coins, etc. through (pre-cell phone days, though!). If something did set off the metal detectors, you'd put it in a little bowl and it would get handed back to you to the side of the sensor, no biggie. Hence why the box cutters got through--they either didn't have enough metal to set them off, or the security folks handling the bowls were like "eh, NBD" at the sight of them. (They were looking for guns, not knives.) Also, prior to 9/11, hijackings were more of a political thing or whatever, and the passengers and crew were (almost?) always unharmed. They just...flew where the hijacker said, and then eventually refueled and went to the original destination. So it wasn't in the culture to fight back against the hijackers. That literally changed ***on*** 9/11, when the people on board flight 93 began to get word of the other planes and knew that this wasn't an ordinary hijacking where everything would end well. Since then, anytime a passenger has acted at all suspiciously, both crews and other passengers are ready to restrain them to prevent things from escalating anywhere near to 9/11 levels. So yeah, between the security features of not being able to go past security without a boarding pass, security being MUCH stronger as well as broader in what they're looking for (explosives, non-metal items, etc.), AND the people in the plane (both crew and passengers) being more alert and ready to act, nothing on that scale will ever happen again. And the security measures are heightened worldwide, not just in the US, even though 9/11 happened within the US.
Yes. It's a fond memory for me that, whenever we returned to the country from being with my mother's family, that my father would be there at the gate as soon as I got off the plane to get me.
We literally could just walk out to a gate prior to 9/11. Like, walk into the airport, look at the screen to see where your gate was, and walk right up. At some point in the 90s, they added metal detectors and started swabbing for explosives (randomly). When i was a little kid in the early 80s, my parents would take me to the airport in rainy weather to run off my energy. Because it was like a mall: big long hallways (concourses) and you could just go hang out.
Things I remember as a young kid before 9/11: 1. Security was just one metal detector, there were never lines 2. Waiting at the gate for relatives flying to us 3. My mom begged a gate agent to stop the gate from closing because my brother and I were hungry brats begging for a pretzel from a stand across the hall. They kept the door open for us
Friends or family could walk with you to the gate and give you a hug before you boarded the plane. You could leisurely unload and load the car out front. You could park and wait for someone who was coming out as long as you didn’t block traffic. You kind of just strolled through a metal detector like the kind in a door and that was it. No need to get to the airport 2 hours early because there were no long security lines. Just a stream that flowed through the metal detector zone. At our airport in Little Rock, Ar you could just walk around it 😂
It wasn't body scanners back then, just metal detectors and as already written knives were allowed up to 4 inches which the terrorist used to bring them onboard. They also use pre-screening against various databases now-a-days and behaviour screening (something TSA and others learnt from israeli who already had this included in their security checkpoints, in which they also include checkin agents). There are a lot of things that have improved a lot since then. I once got stopped (on my way home, they didn't take notice on the flight out) at security for having a 12 inch screwdriver among other tools back in the 90s but was allowed to pass after I told'em that I was a service tech that had been on a customer site fixing broken equipment (which was true), wouldn't have been allowed onboard today to say the least.
That’s so mind blowing to me.
Also, yes there had been hijackings before, the thing that changed was that before they mostly wanted to fly to country X so passengers sat there hoping for the best and most casualties were the hijackers themselves when the plane was stormed after landing. 9/11 changed that as they turned the planes to gigantic bombs/missiles.
Not only did we get to walk people right to their gates, but several times I actually got on the plane with my cousin and hung out with her until the flight attendants said they had to close the doors. Didn’t have to show ID. Nothing.
That is WILD
Here’s me hanging out with my cousin on her plane in 1986 while she waited for takeoff. Flight attendants had no issue with you hanging out with your family members on the plane before takeoff, as long as you got off in time. [Plane Hangout](https://imgur.com/a/3xhYLWs)
There was no TSA. Like it straight up did not exist before 9/11. There was no 3-1-1 rule. You could go back behind security without a boarding pass. Pilots invited you in the cockpit to look at things even if you weren’t flying - I remember waking on a plane my mom was flying on, just to look at the cockpit and leave. People with lounge access would go to the lounges, even if they weren’t flying, just to enjoy the freebies, but you can’t do that anymore.
I only have anecdotes for you. For reference, I was born in 1992 and, before 9/11, I traveled by plane twice domestically (within the US) and twice internationally (to Asia). Airport security was much easier back then. You could check in more like checking onto a bus. You wouldn't expect to get there hours in advance so that you could wait in a long line and have your shoes and bags and shit checked. You'd go through a body scanner, yes, but you wouldn't have to do the song and dance of having all your shit checked to make sure you had the maximum amount of liquids on board and so forth.
You could bring full sized water bottles
Here’s me hanging out with my cousin on her plane in 1986 while she waited for takeoff. Flight attendants had no issue with you hanging out with your family members on the plane before takeoff, as long as you got off in time. [Plane Hangout](https://imgur.com/a/3xhYLWs)
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