Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

America Recovers: President Decides to Reopen Reagan National

Aired October 02, 2001 - 07:17   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The plan to reopen Washington's Reagan National Airport is welcome news to the thousands of people who work there and to some of the law makers who represent them. One of those is Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, congresswoman from the District of Columbia. She joins us this morning from Washington. Welcome. Good to have you with us.

REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Thank you.

ZAHN: Now, I know the president is going to be making some kind of announcement later today about the status of Reagan National. What do you expect him to say?

HOLMES NORTON: Well, you see me smiling because I got a call late last night to ask me to come to the White House. I believe that either the president or some of his top aides will be announcing that Reagan National Airport will open. That couldn't be better news to the District of Columbia. Not only has our airport been closed, but by closing our airport, we have also closed down our major private sector industry, tourism, devastating the city and sending thousands of people onto the unemployment rolls.

ZAHN: Well, that's, I know, really tough for all of you to swallow who live there. Do you have any idea, can you put a dollar number on the kinds of losses you've suffered? I know the toll of people losing jobs is enough. But can you put a dollar figure to that?

HOLMES NORTON: Well, if you think about the people alone, if you take National Airport and you take the employees there and the shutdown of our tourist industry, you're talking about 15,000 people. You're talking about people who work for the airport, people who work for the airlines who can't get in and people who work for the hotels and restaurants in the District of Columbia.

It has, if the president does, as I think he will, announce the reopening of the airport today, it will come not a moment too soon. I called the White House last week. I asked to come in so that we could spell out what it meant for the capital of the United States. We have just come out of the worst economic crisis in a century. We were thriving until this happened and then we had this temporary monument, frankly, left by the tourists, the close down of our airport, which says to many in the world that the nation's capital itself must be closed down. ZAHN: Representative Norton, though, at the same time you obviously have to be very concerned about the safety of the people who live there. What is your understanding of how they are going to keep jets, either commercial airliners or general aviation planes, out of that prohibited air space?

HOLMES NORTON: Well, I could not have been more concerned. I represent 600,000 people who live here. I knew nobody would get on the planes to come here if the planes weren't secure, and there are going to be extraordinary measures taken here and we need those measures taken here. I don't think there will be any difficult keeping people out of the air space now. I think people flying into the air space kind of to look at the monuments. I don't think they'll be doing that, particularly because there are F16s and AWACs up there now.

They are probably going to open the airport gradually. We asked for at least the shuttles to be open. Let's connect Washington, New York and Boston, where the devastation is associated. But we think Reagan National Airport can be opened to everybody. If you control what goes on in the air, you can -- I'm sorry. If you control what goes on, on the ground, you can control what goes on in the air. If you control who gets in the airplane and what those folks take with them and you lock the cockpit, you have, are virtually at zero risk when it comes to planes.

I think you're going to find Reagan National Airport a model for what will happen to airports across the country and that air safety is going to be increasingly safe in this country. It's still the safest form of transportation even after this devastation.

ZAHN: But I think even you would have to acknowledge the one statistic that people find frightening, that so far this year there have been some 20 incursions into this prohibited air space over Washington. So basically what you're telling me this morning, with all these new regulations put in place, you do not expect that to happen again?

HOLMES NORTON: I don't expect a single incursion. The AWACs and F16s up there will usher people out of the air space before they get anywhere close to incursion. Again, remember that these incursions happened when there were no planes up there and there were only controllers on the ground. So I have no doubt that those kinds of statistics, the before September the 11th statistics, do not apply now because everything has been scrubbed and there are entirely new ways to go at aviation, not only in this region, but in the country.

ZAHN: Representative Norton, did you get any indication at the White House when the airport might be opened to full capacity?

HOLMES NORTON: Now I think our next challenge is making sure that this isn't put off for months. I think we asked first for an announcement date. First the administration was saying that the airport was closed indefinitely. I specifically asked that the word indefinitely be scrubbed. They used then the word temporarily. Now they know that there's been such pressure not only from me, but from elected officials in Maryland and in Virginia -- and I must tell you, I think the majority of members of the House and Senate -- that they knew they had to say it will be opened.

Now the question is are they going to open it six months from now or are they going to open it six days from now? And I think that limited, with limited and gradual reopening of the airport, you could reopen the airport before the end of the week, and that's what I'm going to be pressing for when I go into the White House today.

ZAHN: Well, good luck and thank you for giving us a preview of some of what the president might tell you a little bit later on today.

Representative Norton, good of you to join us. Thanks.

HOLMES NORTON: My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com