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?

Yes, and people would dress up. This was the 70’s and I was quite young, but going to the airport was an event. Men would be in suits and women would be in dresses and heels, but then I guess flying was the preserve of the wealthy then, before the arrival of package holidays and budget flights.

I worked at an airport in the ‘80s and by then Club 18-30 style breaks were all the rage. People would show up looking for a standby flight/holiday to anywhere hot with only a toothbrush and a bikini as their luggage 😁 No need for sun cream in those days.

I don’t remember it being that much different. Getting through security has always depended on how busy the airport is. There were scanners and they checked bags.

There are biometrics and finger printing now which I had to do for first time going to the US a few years ago.

No probs..

Just for context, given the thread title, IMO in reality 9/11 didn't change the passenger experience at UK airports that much (it did in the US).

Many maybe won't be aware that there were some significant attacks on airliners in the late 60s/early 70s, ,(e.g. the Dawson's field event), and it was those events that led to a lot of today's hassle...metal detectors, X-raying and the tightning up of terminal/airside access in many places....

Sure 9/11 brought in more restrictions on things like blades etc but a lot of the bigger changes mostly happened behind the scenes and probably had more effect long term on airport and airline employees than passengers.

The obvious other recent hassle for passengers has been the one you mentioned, the liquids restrictions, but that's something else that didn't get introduced due 9/11.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/12/newsid_2514000/2514929.stm

Sorry the ^ was a reply to @ethelredonagoodday but edit didn't quite go as planned....

When I was a student in Manchester in the 90s we would go to the airport after a night out as it was one of the few places where you could get a coffee late at night/early in the morning on a Sunday.

In the 1970s you needed to arrive at the airport an hour before your flight. A family friend was a regular flyer and would arrive 30 minutes before.

And duty free was actually cheaper than high street shops!

Oh I'm sure you could and possibly still can go and eat/drink landside at Manchester.- you can still do the same at least some of the Heathrow terminals where there are a limited number of coffee shops/restaurants landside...

Thing is these days the majority of restaurants anf shops are airside, and you can't get to those without a ticket and going through security, so things have definitely changed since the olden days 🤔

For info you can still run to that sort of timing at many airports, certainly if you've done on-line check-in and are handbaggage only..

If you're someone who hates standing in line, especially if you're just doing it to pick up a boarding pass, then that is actually an aspect of air travel that has improved in recent years.

Ohh yep, agree Duty free can be a rip off...

Dublin Airport in the 80s and 90s had security checks as you walked into the building and on the slip road up to the terminal. Id checks were strict too, I was endlessly stopped for questioning as a teenager.
But one international house move my Mum flew via 3 airports with a large bread knife in her handbag. The movers missed it so she just popped it in her bag, and noone said anything.

A British visitor's passport. You could get them at the post office, you just took in you birth certificate and a photo.

There was a limited number of countries that accepted it.

I was in Australia in the 1990s and the pick up person from the hotel was in baggage claim.

My son got to go and meet the pilots in about 2020! So sometimes still happens. This was a TUI flight to Tenerife.

I remember flying to Toronto in the 90s and going to see the cockpit with my brother - mid flight. The pilot was lovely and I thought we were the bees knees at the front of the plane. I'll never forget it. It would never happen now of course, sadly :(

The biggest difference between the airport experience of 20-30 years ago and the experience today is that back then airports were designed for the planes and the passengers, with a few shops for last-minute purchases and a cafe for a bite to eat.

In the UK the modern "airport" is nothing like this. It has morphed into a shopping mall where planes also happen to land, and the convenience of the passengers now comes as a poor afterthought. Never mind the queues for security - on a bad day at Stansted it can take as long to shuffle around the maze past the ladies flogging overpriced perfume as it does to check in.

Which is why you spend £3 to skip that bit by opening a special door.

I went on a school trip to Bristol Airport in the 80's. We were invited up into the control tower to chat to the air traffic controllers about their careers (The airport was fog bound that day so not a lot going on).
Also the areas around airports was more accessible. You could park your car on the road immediately outside the airport site. Now the road outside Bristol airport has been diverted away from the runway and is painted with double lines to restrict parking.
I grew up next to the aircraft works at Filton in the days when concorde was being built. They would have open days when families would be all over the site and the Red Arrows (so actually military planes) would perform.

True (look at images of the Stansted terminal when it opened verses now), but..

Airports cost money to run,.lots, .

That money used to mainly come in the form passenger handling and aircraft handling fees extracted fom the airlines.

Over the last few decades passengers have pushed for cheap/cheaper flights...

Airlines often really object very strongly to what they might see as excessive airport/passenger charges/aircraft handling fees because the money to pay for those is reflected in the ticket price...

A certain well known airline often threatens to withdraw from an airport completely if the airport management threatens to increase handling charges..

So the airport has to gather at least some of it's revenue from passengers, directly, whilst they are in the terminals.

You can have almost shopping free terminals and views of the aircraft, or fares at current levels...it's hard/impossible to have both.

Re the cardboard passport

Years ago I worked at a Post Office and used to issue these. They were 1 year BVPs (British visitors passport) They were pale pink I think. We would see a birth certificate/marriage certificate, hand write the details and stick the photo in and stamp part over if I remember correctly. Only to be used in Europe though

We were on an expat posting in Singapore and my husband’s employer provided us with an allowance to fly back to the UK annually on “home leave”. We used to try and max out our allowance by flying with cheaper airlines, so we could then go on local trips around south east Asia.

I was flying with my young son (he was aged about 9 or 10 so would have been about 1998 or 1999 on a horrible outbound journey with Royal Brunei Airlines:

Singapore-Calcutta-Dubai-London Heathrow. There weren’t many passengers on the flight and my son and I were invited up to the cockpit to have a chat with the Pilot and First Officer. We returned to our seats and a bit later on, a Flight Attendant invited my son up to sit in the jumpseat in the cockpit as it was coming in to land at Dubai airport. He still remembers it vividly.

In the 1980s I worked at the Crown Post Offices; we did issue the (cardboard) British Visitors Passports and yes, for a family we had to paste and postmark photos of the parent(s) but we just wrote down the names and D.O.Bs of the children. They were valid for twelve months but only valid for certain countries where visas were not required…..they were mostly used for package holidays around Europe.

I will never forget when I was in the middle of issuing a BVP for a family and asked the father for the photos. He then gave me a photo of himself, his wife and his children sitting in front of a Christmas tree lol!