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

[doosesmarket]

I’m watching an old Airline UK episode and it’s from 9/11. The way people were behaving at not being able to get on their flights blows my mind. I keep trying to think well they hadn’t processed 9/11 the way we have now, but realistically they’d all seen screens of the news and watched 2 planes smash into the towers and the towers collapse full of people.

Surely you’d have enough understanding of the need to ground flights and change security measures even then?

I know it was 25 years ago but AIBU to hope those people demanding/shouting at the staff/the entitlement that they need to get to Benidorm that day because ‘we’re not in America’ were ashamed when they seen themselves on the telly and how they acted during the most horrific terrorist attack any of us have ever lived during?

On another note, it is such a strange thing watching the security measures roll out from that day and the roll out of clear plastic bags etc. The one that got me was the staff saying ‘well we will now need to scan all luggage’ because it wasn’t the done thing already!

It was a crazy time. Think how people
behaved in the earliest days of Covid and lockdown. Washing their shopping.
undressing at the door. I think you are looking at this with the benefit of hindsight.

im not sure which day specifically this programme covered but flights didn’t stop immediately - I was in Paris at the time and came back normally no additional
restrictions. I was dues to fly to the US and went out on one of the first flights after the cancellations. Again no restrictions. My parents flew somewhere a few weeks later and weren’t allowed to take a newspaper on board. It was crazy - no one knew quite how to respond. ithe US had to do the most as their security was minimal but it couldnt be done quickly. I think in the UK incoming and outgoing passengers weren’t separated and I remember work to do that and temporary barriers. The liquids ban came in and was sustained however I don’t recall
luggave ever not being scanned. I think shoe checks came in then too however in the UK there was always tighter security than the US. I remember thinking family departure scenes at the gate in films
were just a plot device but pre 911 in the US you could actually just wander up to the gate.

I don’t think people realised how big the situation was. Nothing like that had ever happened before. When the first plane hit most news channels were reporting it as a possible accident.

25 years ago was also totally different to now, people stuck in airports couldn’t get their smartphones out and access breaking news coverage and social media etc.

I flew on 9/11, not in the USA, about an hour after the second tower was hit. It was the strangest flight I've ever been on- very quiet, many people in tears, including airline staff and nobody, nobody shouting at all.

I didn’t know people were going on like that how shocking! You’d think after seeing all that they’d be frightened to get on a plane I’d be heading off back home.

18 years working for an airline in customer service and it doesn’t surprise me one bit….. too many stories to tell really but people really do loose their shit at the airport when things go wrong!

Yes YABU. I flew back from France that day, had no idea of the scale of what had happened, the enormity of it. I was pissed off at being delayed although I wasn’t arsey about it, but I didn’t see any footage of what happened until I was back home, way past midnight that day.

I also flew on 9/11. Not in the USA about 7 or 8 hours after the 2nd tower fell. It was a very quiet subdued flight. A lot of no shows and a lot (for the time) security checks. No aggro at all and everyone behaved well

Don’t forget your watching it well after the event with the knowledge we have now. That’s very different from the position people on the ground at the time will have been in

I watched it on tv.

nobody knew what was happening at the time.

you are totally talking with the benefit of hindsight.

the mobile network in London either went down or was taken down and people were evacuated from major possible targets (while not being told why).

it wasn’t at all clear to the public what the fuck was going on for some time afterwards.

people may well have been panicking and wanting to get home to their loved ones.

i thought it might well have been the start of a war and was deeply grateful that my dh was in the same country as me and not visiting America.

Hard agree

We had shoe checks after 1986. Flight out of Heathrow with a pregnant girlfriend with a bomb in the shoe heel.

Don't judge.

We once were caught up in a big train disruption.

There was a lady making a huge fuss about getting the train and we all rolled our eyes and thought how self important as we were all stuck.
Anyway I got talking to her and turned out it was a genuinely life or death situation and she needed to get to a hospital within a fixed time schedule.

They got her a taxi and hopefully she got there in time.

YABU. You’re judging them because you’re so used 24/7 news and social media, you’ve forgotten it wasn’t normal back then. The scale of 9/11 was also incomprehensible in the moment. until you saw it on the news, that I genuinely think a lot of people didn’t realise what had actually occurred.

YABU, we really didnt have so much up to date info then. I was at school and told "a plane hit a tower" but to me that meant the control tower! It wasnt until the 6pm news that I learned it was a terrorist attack

Having seen customers still wanting to be served when staff are dealing with another customer who has fainted, nothing surprises me. People are very selfish sometimes

Honestly I didn’t think it was real and made some inappropriate comment before the actual situation sunk in.

I was in London that day aged 20 and had never heard of the World Trade Center. I didn't have a clue what it meant that a plane had hit.

I remember clearly getting the paper on the way home (remember the second pressing?), think it might have been the evening standard and there were pictures of it in that, but that was London, I don't think other papers did a second press. I can well imagine people travelling would not have known he news or understood why flights were grounded because of a crash in the USA. Horrible behaviour isn't excusable of course but it was a very different time and news was not accessible like it is now.

The liquids ban came in and was sustained however I don’t recall

The liquid ban had nothing to do with 9/11. That started in 2006 after the transatlantic bombing plot, involving hydrogen peroxide bombs that were to be assembled in planes after being carried on in drinks bottles, mixed with Tang powder to make it look like Lucosade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_plot

I’ve written about this before on MN.

I worked abroad during 9/11. Watched a plane hit on the news and then
Knew we’d be called for an emergency meeting.

We were and went to the airport to meet a whole load of planes headed for Mexico that were grounded in the country.

Most people were understanding and gracious (many honey Mooners) and took their 5* hotel and waited for information about what would happen next.

I woman was walking through the hotel complaining that she didn’t have any underwear for the following day and only had the thing she was wearing.

There were shops literally over the road!

More importantly there were people falling and leaping from 2 burning buildings halfway around the world.

Luckily a number of people gave her some home truths because professionally we werent allowed to!

My workplace had a big TV in a central atrium and reception had it permanently turned to BBC news. All of the internet news sites, and some others, were down so if we didn't go downstairs to watch we didn't know what was going on.

It was like something out of a Die Hard film and unbelievable that it was real.

People actually took it more seriously/showed more care than they do about terrible events today, in general. I'm not saying everyone, obviously, including the ones you point out. But there wasn't as much immediate victim blaming/joking, probably because social media didn't exist.
I don't know if you would get Radio 1 DJs discussing whether it was ok/respectful to go to nightclubs the weekend after, for example.

Ah yes! I am conflating events there. That was a frightening incident in 2006,
not sure how I could have forgotten it. I am obviously getting old; I went to a high school
open evening a few years back and the history department had a display on ‘key events in history’ - 911 was up there with ww1 and ww2! I felt like a dinosaur especially as the teacher said he wasn’t born when 9 11 happened 😂

The program gives the suggestion it was a good 12 hours or so after the attack. People knew America was under attack and the had watched the towers fall. The program carries on over the next day by which time we fully knew the scale of destruction and that it was not an accident. I understand what people are saying as like I said in my OP I did try to keep giving the benefit of the doubt but surely you’d still not think your holiday flight being cancelled because of a terrorist attack was a justified reason to berate airport staff?

Yes and the only way to get updates was really to watch TV or listen to radio, and people didn’t generally have pocket versions of these. The internet existed but crashed everywhere due to demand.