Herald news services
SEATTLE-TACOMA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT— Air travel resumed in fits and starts at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and across America on Thursday. A two-day ban on flight, prompted by the disastrous terrorist takeover of four jetliners, was lifted after the implementation of new security measures intended to thwart hijackers and reassure skittish passengers.
With flight schedules spotty in the first hours after air travel was cleared to resume, Delta Flight 528 was the first to leave Sea-Tac, at 12:22 p.m.
The Federal Aviation Administration also permitted airports in Spokane, Port Angeles, Walla Walla and Yakima to resume operations Thursday.
By 6 p.m., approximately 16 planes had arrived or departed at Sea-Tac, with perhaps two or three of them carrying passengers, said airport spokeswoman Rachel Garson.
On a normal day, 1,200 to 1,300 planes come and go at Sea-Tac, she said.
Seven airlines flew on Thursday out of approximately 25 that operate there, Garson said.
Garson said she expected today to be slightly better, but cautioned that Sea-Tac travel would not recover as quickly as it did in the aftermath of the magnitude 6.8 Feb. 28 earthquake, which damaged the control tower. Air traffic controllers then quickly moved to temporary quarters in a trailer set atop shipping containers.
Sea-Tac passengers were prepared for more stringent, time-consuming security checks of tickets and baggage after Tuesday’s attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
"It’s going to be a tremendous change from the easy travel we’ve had in the past," said Terry Garber, who was trying to get home to Atlanta with his wife, Kathy.
A new security gate was set up to help authorities monitor and even search vehicles entering the drives to the airport’s check-in gates and baggage claim area.
Across the nation, the restoration of service began in stages at 8 a.m. It was not seamless. Bomb threats forced temporary evacuations of terminals at Los Angeles International and the Orlando, Fla., airport. Air traffic into the New York region’s three airports was halted again in the late afternoon, a shutdown evidently related to the search for terrorists.
Many airlines, United and Southwest included, chose to keep their airplanes grounded for at least another day, and in terminals across the land passengers could be seen scrambling to patch together itineraries on the run.
In reopening the nation’s airspace, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said that individual airports and airlines would be allowed to resume operations only after demonstrating that they had put in place a host of new security measures. By noon, more than 300 of the nation’s 449 towered airports had been cleared to resume service.
"What we are trying to do right now," Mineta told reporters in Washington, D.C., "is restore to normalcy, as well as we can, the ability to travel."
Among the new security rules is a ban on curbside check-in. Small knives, believed to be the weapons wielded by terrorists on Tuesday, have been banned. Some airlines and airport restaurants believe that even plastic knives are forbidden. In addition, more flights will carry armed air marshals, plainclothes officers and perhaps even Special Forces soldiers.
Some of the new security rules could prove to be confusing. For example, no one will be allowed past security now without a valid ticket. Agency spokeswoman Rebecca Trexler said it will be up to the airlines, however, to decide what constitutes a "valid ticket." It remains unclear whether electronic tickets will be accepted at all locations.
American Automobile Association spokesman Mantill Williams said his organization is advising travelers to arrive at the airport two hours before a domestic flight’s scheduled departure, and to allow three hours for international flights.
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