The disaster which changed air travel before the pandemic – Remembered or Forgotten?

Most of us miss travelling, but that is due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has caused many travel restrictions and temporarily halted us from visiting our dream destinations.

20 years have passed since the disaster happened, which made air travel a frightening experience. Not Covid-19, not SARS but the 9/11 attacks. It happened in the U.S but has a staggering global impact it has brought with it, especially on air travel that most of us look forward to. It was the day that 19 hijackers turned four Boeing jetliners into missiles. The World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in Southern Pennsylvania were the locations where the crashes occurred which killed so many innocent people, it feels like a nightmare. Eight pilots and 25 flight attendants were amongst the front liners working in those 4 hijacked planes.

It took 2 years for the global passenger traffic to recover to normal volumes. Not only did it cause paranoia to travel, but it also caused a recession that disrupted financial wellbeing through loss of jobs for people and lack of passenger traffic for airline companies. The severity of the disaster’s impact caused operating airlines to recover their losses through various means like paid airplane meals(which used to be free), adding more seats by reducing legroom, etc. Airport security had to be enhanced to prohibit sharp objects like knives and razor blades.

If only such measures were in place before, the weapons brought by the hijackers would have been detected beforehand and lives would have been saved.

The disaster might have happened when we were too young to remember it, but its effects last to date.