What were airports like pre 9 11?

[Ninapertree]

I'm in the airport getting a flight and its taking ages. Ages through the security queue. Then i got patted down. Ages through the boarding queue.

My mum said "do you remember the old days before 9 11, when airports were much easier to get through".

I cant remember. I was 16 when 9 11 happened and I think i only flew a few times before 9 11. I asked my mum and she cant remember specificially but she remembers it being easier and quicker to get through.

What were they like back then. I'm interested. Was security different?

Because of the shoe bomber.
on a transatlantic flight some terrorist tried to concoct a bomb out of liquids in the bathroom

I think he broadly succeeded but the bomb didn’t go off exactly as planned and the plane landed safely (and he was arrested and jailed)

for a short while after that you weren’t allowed any hand baggage at all, then they came up with the liquids rule

My 10 year old has been invited into the cockpit about 3 times since he was born, I’ve got some great photos of him wearing a pilots hat with a BA crew so it does still happen!

I remember:

Parking right next to the terminal, walking through to the gate, straight through to baggage scan and into the plane - so probably less than 50 steps from car to seat on aircraft.

Being able to rock up 20 minutes before takeoff, in the above setup.

Travelling on a temporary passport.

Being able to travel “standby” I.e just showing up in the hope that there would be a spare seat, which would then be super-cheap rather than super-expensive.

I was a regular traveller one one route so my employer provided a little book of pre-paid tickets for that route, which would just get handed over like cheques at check- in.

Heathrow Terminal 1 😄

US arrivals has always been scary.

No-one used to want to fly long distance with KLM because they had a bad reputation for cabin air quality. But they did used to give you little souvenir ceramic houses in business class - do they still do that?

Adding to the people who say that there was terrorism before 9/11 so security existed then. I dont remember a time before xraying bags because i was a child when Lockerbie happened.

I Recall checks on liquids came in with the uni bomber, shoe checks came in with the shoe bomber.

Security got more serious after 9/11. America became harder to enter.

Middle Eastern men have been viewed with suspicion in my lifetime (47 years).

Even more security now!

With regard to flight deck visits, and AFAIK..

Passengers on the flight deck whilst engines are running has been banned on UK registered commercial aircraft since 9/11.

ETA: visits pre-start or after engine shutdown are permissible/legal but sometimes difficult to do because of time constraints.

Most other states have similar rules though there are exceptions.

A aircraft commander subject to the UK protocols who decided to ignore the rule and allow visits in flight would get fired and quite probably prosecuted.

....and pre 9/11 yes, airports were much more relaxed but X-raying of handbaggage and the archway detectors pre-date 9/11 to my knowledge by well over a decade-that might go back to the 60s or 70s.

In the 1970s Iran Air. Hold baggage was on the tarmac next to the plane and you had to identify your cases. Boeing 707 or 727 local flights.
Went in to cockpit with my Dad, of a BAC 1-11 mid flight, the engineer turned up the log book and said the aircraft had flown 25 million miles.

I lived with my grandparents and when we went on a big family holiday I was the only child with their own passport. The other kids were on their parents passports.

People were allowed to smoke on the plane, but only at the back.

Us kids (about 10 of us) were parked into the cafe at the airport while the adults went to check in. My aunt had to rush and grab us all one year when he rules had changed and the check in agent had to see everyone checking in to make sure they matched the passport and were there with their luggage.

It was great, everything was just so much more relaxed and enjoyable. We don't bother much now because it's not a pleasant experience

I did too. I think they could only be used for Europe?

As for smoking onboard, I remember starting as cabin crew and we would draw the galley curtain and have a cigarette before taking the trolleys out. And the back five rows were smoking seats. Ten seats across on a jumbo - so 50 people would simultaneously light up as soon as the no smoking sign went off. And you could guarantee that someone in the row in front of them, who had booked a non smoking seat and was asthmatic!

We used to raffle the spare seat in the flight deck for landing- it really helped our charity. And we took loads of kids to see the flight deck mid flight. It was never locked. Nowadays they can only go when the aircraft is on the ground.

Post Lockerbie, the UK developed blast proof luggage containers for aircraft holds, but the aircraft industry decided it was too expensive to implement, Would have added pennies onto the price of an airline ticket.

They were brilliant, you could arrive 1.5 hours ahead of your flight even at Heathrow, an hour beforehand at smaller airports. It was so much quicker and less onerous, you never had to take off your shoes etc. The liquids rule really made things harder.
Also there were tons more flights - several a day, not several a week. I used to fly from Germany to the U.K. for £120 return and it could be even less. All in, no additional costs.
You could fly BA from regional airports and get a decent cup of tea. I literally used to choose BA over Lufthansa so I could get friendly staff and good tea, the flights were a similar time.

It wasn’t fully banned in the UK until 1997

I'm sure DS was on my passport at one stage before he got his own.

I can remember smoking at the back like on a bus

The fist time I flew in the early 90s and was to Corfu, they decided my mum’s hand luggage bag was too heavy so had to go in the hold. So they sent it off down the conveyor belt and then my mum realised the passports were in the bag. So we just travelled to Greece with no passports and were able to get them out and show them at baggage reclaim when we got there.

In the late 1990s I flew from a small airport in the North of England. It was like going to the cinema. I arrived a couple of hours before departure and parked across the road. I showed my ticket to the clerk, walked up to a couple of security officers who waved a wand over me and let me through. I turned a corner and was in a small waiting room right next to the gate. No shops or cafes, although there was a very small play area for children like you might see in a doctor's waiting room. This particular airport has been extended several times since then and is now a major hub but I avoid flying due to the hassle.

Yes, children born up until the very late 1990s could travel on a parent's passport.

My trips were for work and I have no intention of going back!

I flew internally in the US a month before 9/11 and there was nothing. Everyone took their luggage on the plane - walked into the airport to the gate and then in to the plane with no checks at all!

That’s right! I remember me and my sister being on my parents’ passports as kids!

I can remember seeing planes full of people being held hostage after the plane had been hijacked - seemed to be on the news a lot in the late 70's/early 80's - I guess better security stopped that.

That happened to me when I was a child, we got onto a plane at Plymouth Airport (sadly no more) and then found out it was going to Gatwick and we wanted to go to Jersey!

It was the liquids rule which made everything a pain. Before that you just got your bags scanned and went through a metal arch but that was it.

My DH used to choose Lufthansa because he got a mini bottle of Franconia wine in economy. Yes, those were the days!