re: What was air travel like before 9/11?

That's still around, but most routes long enough to do that will just have a screen on the back of each seat and you can pick your own movie.

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What was air travel like before 9/11?

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My first flight was from BR to South Dakota for a turkey hunt in the early 90’s. The “rule” was couldn’t have ammunition in same case as the gun. So they had me put the shotgun shells in my carryon bag. ??

A lot of these probably have been said by now, but...

1) You know the security at places like the Superdome, the crackhead min wage temp employees who check your bags and you walk through the metal detector? That was who was in charge of airport security.

2) You didn't need a ticket to go to the gate. I remember going with my mom to meet my dad at the gate when he would get home from a trip, and my mom would take me an hour of so early so I could watch other planes land and taxi to the terminal.

3) Security scanning of checked luggage basically was having a dog walk alongside a pile of bags sniffing for stuff.

4) Not related to 9/11, but I remember when Southwest used to be first come, first serve. People would sit in the lines for an hour or more to get on the plane first.

5) Also not really related to 9/11, but no online check-in, and I still remember paper tickets.

6) As a kid, being able to go see the cockpit while in flight.

7) The flight engineer - back before so much of the plane was automated... he had an important role in making sure stuff worked properly.

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The headphones that were basically just tubes that plugged into little speakers in the arm rests and physically channeled sound into your ears rather than electronically.

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yeah, remember that, the ones they hand out now are real(lower end,) ear buds

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These were a life savor, but i remember a lot of times the curbsides desks weren't staffed so it was a relief when they were

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At MSY, I feel like they were only staffed from like 11 am to 2 pm, Monday - Friday.

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Pretty much. And family members/friends could wait at the gate for you to arrive or say goodbye at the gate.

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Yep. I worked in the Shreveport airport in the year 2000. As an airline employee we would conduct security checks where we would try to get fake weapons through security. I used to get guns, knives, and even a grenade through in my sock. I also could take naps on the baggage belt in the back between flights. To say the security was lax would be a huge understatement.

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- how in the world they hired and trained all the TSA agents in a two week period was impressive.

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They nationalized an entire industry overnight. They basically went to every airport concession that provided screening, and said, you work for the feds now. They hired every single person that was working for a security concession.

Over time, of course, they weeded some out, hired new people, etc.

I flew about a month after 9/11. The security people were still in their old uniforms, with basically paper nametags identifying them as federal agents.

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No one cared what liquids you packed in your carryon.

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the restrictions on liquids came a few years later.

after 9/11 you could still bring drinks, water bottles, etc. there was a scare regarding liquid explosives in 2006, and that's when the liquid restrictions came into affect in the US.

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Went through security to board. I remember my backpack full of toys getting inspected (as a kid!) because it looked weird in the metal detector.

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Yeah, there were security checks, but they were handled by private companies. Depending on which airport (and maybe even which airline), my experience is that they were nasty, stupid, rude people who didn't give a shite about you, security or anything else. Think DMV but less empathetic.

In the early days of TSA screeners, the professionalism went WAY up. I guess it's regressed since then, but at the time it was night and day better.