This Sunday (September 11) marks the 10th anniversary of an event which shook the world. Four aeroplanes were hijacked on flights out of Boston, Washington and Newark. Two crashed into the upper floors of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. The third crashed into the Pentagon in Washington while the fourth, thanks to the stirring bravery and selflessness of many aboard, landed way from crowded building in a field in Pennsylvania, although all the passengers paid with their lives.
Thousands died in these terrorist attacks: men, women and children, Christians and Muslims, blacks, whites and Asians. Lest we forget, among them was the American Express implant team working for Marsh McLennan on the 93rd floor of 1WTC, travel agents just going about their everyday work. It is becoming plain that thousands more have had their lives blighted, either through the loss of a loved one or through inhaling the poisonous dust thrown up by the collapse of the twin towers.
While not in any way wishing to belittle the scale of the tragedy that over took so many families that dreadful day, the repercussions were global and our travel industry was among those which were most directly affected.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks the airspace over the US’s eastern seaboard was closed for several days. When flying was resumed, agencies in London reported that business was significantly down. For those whose clients were predominantly from the finance sector, the fall was even greater with reports of business down by up to 50%. With flights and hotels largely empty, there followed major job cuts, especially among the airlines (Although to be accurate, business was already dropping in a tough economic climate and some of the job cuts would have been made anyway). The prominent mantra of the time was “Things will never be the same again.”
To a large extent that has proved true. The Industry did recover but it is a different from the one that existed on September 10.
Travellers returned to flying slowly. After the days of almost empty flights, there was a tentative increase in numbers. This phase was followed by offers of massive discounts by the carriers to entice passengers, especially business travellers back onto their planes. Lastly the industry was given a great shot in the arm by the emergence of the low cost carriers. As flying resumed something like pre-9/11 levels, so the hotels filled up again. But it was a process that took years.
IATA in a report issued this week said that airline revenues were back to pre-9/11 levels by 2004.
As the industry edged back into normalcy, the first and most obvious change was in security. Airlines took immediate steps to make sure that passengers would never again be able to get into the pilots’ cabin by installing re-inforced and locked doors. Flights in America often had armed marshals aboard and at airports, passengers were subjected to increased searches and forbidden to take sharp objects, like scissors or metal nail files, in their hand luggage.
These restrictions have increased over the decade as other attempts by terrorists to blow up planes in mid-flight have been foiled. Among these was the plot at Heathrow in 2006 to use liquid explosives to destroy planes on at least ten transatlantic flights.
The slow moving security queues at airports across the world are now one of the greatest bugbears of international travel, often requiring business travellers to spend far more time at airports than they would wish. The cost to businesses is impossible to calculate and despite improvements in technology, these queues seem to get no shorter nor faster moving.
But if that is the negative legacy for the travel industry of 9/11, there is also a far more positive one. Few travel managers who had colleagues in New York on the morning of September 11 need reminding of the awful fact that many simply did not know where these colleagues were or even which hotel they were staying at.
Not only did 9/11 persuade corporates of the need to mandate travel much more but on the technology front, travel tracking devices began to appear on the market. Most TMCS, certainly all medium to global agencies, now offer these as a matter of course. Inevitably there will always be rogue travellers who do what they want rather than what the company wishes. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008 revealed a disturbingly large number of business travellers staying in hotels not on their company’s list but travel tracking, by and large, does allow travel managers to sleep more easily.
But perhaps for the travel industry, there are also two other major aspects of 9/11 and its aftermath. The first is that people have not forgotten it. It could happen again and the more responsible companies have plans and the on call services of risk management companies to manage events should disaster strike again.
The second point is that the industry, plunged to its depth after those attacks, did recover. That is a tribute to its resilience.