9-11 had a big impact on American airline policies, economy, and most importantly American citizens. I think that before 9-11 airlines were not very strict about what you could bring on airplanes, who can get on airplanes, and what you could do on airplanes. No one had ever thought of using the airplane itself as a weapon of destruction let alone by terrorists, intended to threaten and kill many in the United States. When 9-11 occurred the airlines were already in a bad state because of the recession and this certainly did not help them. In fact some airlines had to declare bankruptcy because no one was buying tickets or flying because they were scared it might happen again. Even the agriculture and food companies were struggling alot. This was because of the stop of trading and delayed shipments due to the fact that no planes were flying and that is the main way for shipping products to other regions of the world. All of the businesses around the world trade centers were destroyed, and if not went out of business. Wall Street was affected by tragedy too. The stock market went down severely and put more people with no money and the economy went down.
After 9-11, security heightened extremely. There are so many restrictions and policies about flying and airlines. There is a huge list of things you can’t bring on an airplane. Some things on the list you would be surprised at but others just seem logical. At airports before 9-11 there were hardly any lines or crowds at all. You could show up right before your flight and have plenty of time to get on. Nodaway’s they have extremely long lines for security, baggage, tickets, etc. The use of flying for leisure went down. I think that people fly more for business and only when they have to. It may be because people are still afraid of what happened, and that it could possibly happen again. It may also be that they hate the crowds and long waiting. There was a study done that showed that about 41 million trips over the past 12 months at a cost of more than $26 billion to the U.S. economy were lost because of people that avoided flying because of the amount of frustration it brings to them. Most people seem to think that this issue will not get better. A lot of businesses are starting to become more high-tech. Instead of having business men and business women from all around the country or world constantly flying for just brief meetings, they are using the internet. Businesses realized that, yes, they could spend lots of extra time and money on flying people around they could just have webcam conferences. Although it saved money for the businesses it does not help the airline companies. As if the airlines weren’t already in a bad economic condition this new technology is not helping the current situation.
When the statistics began to show that people were slowly beginning to fly more often another situation occurred which made the numbers of people flying plummet again. That was when the “shoe-bomber” incident occurred. A man boarded a flight in about 2003. He was armed with explosive powder in his shoes. He was going to attempt to take over the plane or explode it, but his plan didn’t work. When someone saw that he was lighting something up they realized something was happening and took him down before it got worse. The bomber only managed to harm himself but it certainly harmed our economy again. People were just staring to fly and feel safe again, and they figured with all the new policies and regulations etc. that nothing could really happen again, especially so soon.
People from Mexico and Canada account for about 56% of American airline travelers. It was 18.9 million Canadians and 13.7 million Mexicans. If the U.S government is looking to narrow security searches they should more closely examine the other 44% from the possible countries where terrorists would arise from. This could eliminate a lot of extra time spent on security or other things related to that. They had a list of people that cannot even buy a ticket from an American airline because they are from a certain country. Some may think that this is prejudiced and not fair. Others would argue that it’s just safer to eliminate all possible terrorist countries and it would help in making the people feel safer again.
Citations:
1. “Travel Facts and Statistics”. U.S Travel Association. 2010. Web. 15 Sept.
2. Cornwell, Derekh and Roberts, Bryan. “The 9/11 Terrorist Attack and Overseas Travel to the United States: Initial Impacts and Longer-Run Recovery”. Working Paper. March, 2010. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ni_911_wp.pdf
3. Makinen, Gail. “Report for Congress”. CRS Web.September 27, 2002. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. <http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31617.pdf>
