AIBU to judge passengers complaining about grounded flights on 9/11?

I know what you’re saying.

Of there’s any huge news stories now my watch will give me a breaking news warning (although we may differ on our opinion about what’s hugely breaking or not ) so even if I’m not somewhere I can watch I’ll know there’s something to watch iyswim?

Your girlfriend had a bomb in her shoes?!

It was a very different time. I was at home so watched the news. Those in airports couldn't watch the news. You couldn't watch TV on your phone they where only used for phone calls and texts. People in airports had to rely on information from airport staff and even they didn't have the full information .

There were lots of strange things that happened that day (and following days).

I was trading in the city and actually had two brokers on the voice box in the twin towers. It was eerie the way it went from one minute shouting prices to the next minute just white noise. Sadly, they both died.

We then went into the CEO’s office and watched it in real time on his huge (at the time) TV. I was totally shocked when the towers collapsed. That shouldn’t have happened. It subsequently turned out that it was due to fraudulently not using the right quality and quantity of building materials.

Then there was the bizarre fact that 9 private Saudi jets were able to fly, even with all other planes grounded, some with members of Bin Laden’s family. There has been no explanation to date of who authorised these flights or why.

There was an assumption, before the shoe bomber and 9/11 that hijackers didn’t want to die themselves, so as long as the hijacker got on the plane with their luggage, the flight was safe. Sadly, with suicide bombers, that assumption had to be changed.

Finally, as to the OP’s question, I think we all tolerate strangers dying for our leisure. Controversially, every time we fly, we contribute to global warming which, statistically is contributing to pressure on the whole system and causing random deaths. I know that feels very different, but it you didn’t know any of the 5,000 odd people who died in 9/11, why would you care more about them than those who died in tsunamis, earthquakes, wars etc. Humans are strange; we care about people we feel are geographically close to us or ‘like us’ far more than others.

I have had a mobile since December1994, a brick of a Motorola, it rang rarely and calls were £££, no internet, no text they were basic, sketchy signal.
I was at home as DS was in reception and was poorly again with his tonsils, my lodger ( a good friend) used to come home for lunch and we'd watch the news ( Sky or CNN can't remember) the program was interrupted to say a plane had hit one of the towers and then there was live footage from the scene, it was then broadcasting when the second plane hit.

I didn’t. Someone mentioned it at work and there was a few seconds chat about it and then we all went about our business. I knew it was bad but I was young and didn’t know what the WTC towers were. I’d heard of them but thought they were some sort of monument like the Eiffel Tower. It wasn’t until I got home many hours later, watched the news and slowly started to comprehend the horror of exactly how many people were killed.

Sure, if you were in the UK/US in an environment where the TV/radio was on in the background you'd know quickly, or were a frequent texter with someone who was and couldn't wait to share the news you'd know PDQ.

But as a lot of posters have pointed out that's not everybody, there will have been a sizeable number of people driving/walking the streets/at work/elsewhere who for whatever reason won't have heard quickly.

The only reason i knew before getting home school (which would have been 4.30, nearly three hours after it started) was my dad phoned me after school to tell me to go straight home.

The only reason i had a phone on me (it was a family one, not mine as such) was because I was supposed to be going to sports practice, and not be home until 8pm.

None of my friends had any idea apart from me telling them "theres been a bomb in New York". There were no noticeable differences on the crowded London bus. Our teachers had had no idea.

We worked in a shop. No radio on. And of course people out and about shopping didn't have the internet in the pockets either. Likewise people on trains or travelling or just at home without a radio on. I tended to have a cassette tape on to listen to in the car as I have never really liked radio. And growing up we only turned the TV on occasionally and that's still the case today. DH grew up with the TV on constantly so I can understand in those houses you would have known sooner

My friends got married the Saturday after it happened.

They were gutted to have missed their honeymoon abroad. They did not complain one bit that they did.

my family and i didn’t know anything til we came back rom holiday and the queues at the airport were immense and we couldn’t figure out why

we didn’t find out til the taxi driver told us

BBC TV rolling news was a thing. It was on all the radio channels. I think it was unlikely that that sort of news hadn’t spread through most workplaces in minutes. My neighbour rang me to put the TV on but if she hadn’t I’d have heard about it when I got in the car to go on the school run, so within the hour. I suppose you wouldn’t have heard if you stayed in all day with no TV or radio and no one had told you.

Phone calls and texts were relatively expensive then.

It's not a case of people making out it was the dark ages, but more a case that unless someone had reason and the means to send a text, or you were near a handy TV, it could certainly take several hours to be fully aware of events such as 9/11.

For example as I recall it you didn't have notifications pushed to your mobile about latest workd events, or (open to correction) an option to pass the time by quickly scanning BBC news headlines on your mobile.

I can certainly understand why someone could rock up at an airport check-in and not know, and in any event agree with the opinion that as always the TV programmes will have been edited to highlight whatever behaviour the director wants to highlight.

Yes they did. I was watching rolling coverage on the television and many people were watching it on screens in shop windows. I really wish people wouldn’t try and make out it was the dark ages. Very few people where I was were unaware of what was going on. As I’ve previously said texting was very common.

Yes they did for goodness sake. They just weren’t smart phones. I had a phone that funnily enough managed texting and they were very common by then.

If you had been berating me you would have immediately gone to the back of the queue and potentially police called for abusive and threatening behaviour. There is NEVER any excuse for abusing and shouting at poor people just trying to do their jobs. Why do you think your needs trump everyone else. This is exactly the attitude op is talking about.

Programnes like Airline only showed the most "entertaining" customers.

Not saying the staff dont get a lot of unreasonable abuse... but it isnt as constant as the programme made out.

Things were very different back then, no smart phones, less internet access etc. Also it took quite a while for people to know what happened.

For instance I didn't know about 9/11 until around 16 hours later, someone 12 hrs after it happened said to me 'Did you hear about the plane crash' and I said 'No' but it wasn't for another 3-4 hours I saw a TV and realised it was more than a simple crash.

I am sure in those first 16 hrs my reaction would have been 'why is my flight cancled because of a crash in America - doesn't make sense?'

@ElBandito

As regards 'everyone must have known' I think a lot of people on here don't know, or have forgotten how much the world has changed.
It's totally unrealistic to think they'd all seen or heard the news.
About 36% of people had mobiles and they didn't have TV screens in them. Just over 40% of homes had satellite dishes

Absolutely agree

And if overseas some mobiles wouldn't work (remember the different specs for e.g. the States/Japan?), roaming cost a fortune, public wi-fi ...what's that?

Case in point is how I found on the day as an airline employee...

Meet up with colleagues (crew) in hotel lobby, get in cab to restaurant...driver mutters about "a plane flying into skyscraper in New York"..we shrug, eat a leisurely dinner, couple of hours later walk into bar for a nightcap...open the door thinking "bit quiet"....and see everyone watching CNN...that's when we found out

These days as an airline employee I doubt we'd have got as far as the restaurant before somebody would have had a message from HQ/the Union/Home..

Different world.

Yes it was about then.

Because we go into hotels at 4 ish for our evening rounds and it was on the news then showing both planes hitting.

We were at the airport by 6 to receive diverted flights. (Same time zone as the uk)

Funnily enough I watched the episode OP stated and then carried on watching some more.

The way people treat staff is appalling.

I’d forgotten that side of it! I’d forgotten how many times I was yelled at because “you can solve the problem you’re just choosing not to”.

I learned well how to put the ball back the other side of the court and so it’s been a great lesson for life in general.

One of my favourite moments of working the tourist industry was my company asking me if I’d really said to a guest “well I can’t build extra rooms in the hotel so short of accepting the 3 alternatives I’ve offered you what would you suggest I do?”

What else could I say other than “yes I did?”

Byw this was because they didn’t want to vacate their room at checkout time because they had a late flight.

There was a courtesy room which they were offered for sole use as a large group for a set period of time, offered the crèche as a room for them to use personally or the adults only chalet for personal use. More than they were entitled to. But no, the only acceptable solution for them was for their entire party of 6 rooms to keep all those rooms until 9pm despite knowing check out times when they booked.

I think they thought force in numbers would win them the argument.

They took the chalet in the end when the hotel owner threatened to get them physically removed from the hotel by the police for abusing me 😂

sadly, as is seen in Airline, and the staff comment on - I suspect they got compensation anyway completely undermining me and my experience 🤷‍♀️

Growing up in London in the 90s, terrorist attacks werent an everyday thing, but were common enough that you were used to working around that train station being closed or taking a different bus home etc.

So on 9/11, relying just on text messages, the idea a terrorist attack the other side of tge world would affect is teens in London seemed absolutely bizarre.

A few years later, i was working iuth a charity abroad when the july bombings hit London. The only information was Spanish CNN. It was very unspecific... because it was aimed at the Central American population not the UK population. It didnt really give the scope of the attack.

People can hold two emotions simultaneously though.

They can be (could have been) absolutely aghast about the attacks, but also upset they are going to miss their daughter's wedding or dad's imminent death or whatever.

Its the same when people try and pretend they are more than happy to be stuck in a 5 hour traffic jam just because someone had it worse than them. Whatever you are doing, there will be someone worse off, so should you not do anything anywhere, anytime because you have more empathy for those not able to do it? Including living in a clean, dry home or eating decent food or having a job or sending your kids to school....? Where do you draw the line?

Airline UK is a TV program filmed for entertainment and content. They aren't going to show the 99.9% of people who, on hearing what happened, reacted well and went home. It shouldn't come as any surprise that some people are tossers, but I suspect a lot weren't behaving like that.

As regards 'everyone must have known' I think a lot of people on here don't know, or have forgotten how much the world has changed.

It's totally unrealistic to think they'd all seen or heard the news.

About 36% of people had mobiles and they didn't have TV screens in them. Just over 40% of homes had satellite dishes.

These days screens are everywhere and switched on all the time. They just weren't back then. Most people's TVs and monitors still weren't flat, they were massively heavy great things with cathode ray tubes. Flat screens were available but still quite new. It's the flat screen that has made the presence of screens in our lives so damnably prevalent.