NewsCovering the Nation

Actions

How 9/11 changed air travel: more security, less privacy

travel.jpeg
Posted at 4:30 AM, Sep 06, 2021
and last updated 2021-09-06 07:19:02-04

Ask anyone old enough to remember travel before Sept. 11, 2001, and you're likely to get a gauzy recollection of what flying was like.

There was security screening, but it wasn’t intrusive. There were no long checkpoint lines. Passengers and their families could walk right to the gate together.

That all ended when four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

The worst terror attack on American soil led to security measures and other changes large and small that have reshaped the airline industry and made air travel more stressful than ever.

There has not been another 9/11. Nothing even close. But after that day, flying changed forever.