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CNN Saturday Morning News
Airline Passengers Should Expect Long Waits
Aired September 29, 2001 - 08:45 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.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: A word of caution if you do fly, you'll have a wait, perhaps a long one, before you board your flight.
And keeping track of that for us, CNN's Kathleen Koch. She is now outside of Dulles International Airport.
Kathleen, what's the situation? Oh, you're inside, I'm sorry. What's the situation there this morning?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, there are some long lines here at Dulles International Airport. This is the airport that President Clinton flew into last night. And the security is quite tight. If you look just to my left, they are going through some people's bags inch by inch.
Now, this isn't something brand new, though, John. This is called passenger profiling. This has been going on for years. What happens is a person's name is just randomly selected by the computer when they check in and their bags are gone through top to bottom. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything about them that raised a red flag, but this is something that's being done in a more visible manner than ever before.
We are at the Delta ticket counter and as many people may recall, this is the airline that just last week announced it was laying off some 13,000 employees, the CEO saying its aircraft were going out about one third full. But as you can see, they've got lengthy lines here. However, the lines are moving.
We've talked to people who have said that they're reaching the front of this very long line in just about 40 minutes. And people are, they have mixed feelings about flying.
Why don't we talk to a parent who is here today putting his two young children on a flight to New York City? This is Mr. Charles Patterson (ph).
Mr. Patterson, how do you feel about putting your children on a flight after what happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel fine. I think that the flights are secure. There's sky marshals. We've talked about that with the children. And we feel fine with flying. KOCH: Now, young Ginny (ph) and William, I understand you two have flown before. How do you feel about getting on a plane right now?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Excited.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Sort of -- well, yes, excited, too. And we're very happy to go on it again.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Maybe a little bit scared or something because of what happened. But pretty much we feel, we pretty much feel fine.
KOCH: Well, obviously, John, that's the kind of feeling that President Bush was trying to install in Americans earlier this week when he announced a number of changes that would be made at airports, increasing the number of federal air marshals on flights, stepping up federal oversight of the baggage checking process, putting in National Guardsmen in the airports to help manage security here at Dulles Airport. We haven't seen any of that yet today, but that's something that will probably be implemented in the coming days and weeks.
Again, as we said, the lines are moving well here, especially at the United Airlines ticket counter. It is one of the only airlines in the country that was given permission today by the FAA to begin to resume curbside check-in. Now, they're resuming it here and at Chicago O'Hare and the FAA says that other airlines will be allowed to resume as they improve their security measures -- John.
KING: Well, Kathleen, you are out at Dulles Airport, the major international airport in the Washington area, but closer to downtown, Reagan National Airport remains closed. Any update on when that airport might reopen?
KOCH: Well, John, obviously we got some news last week. Transportation Secretary Mineta was saying that a decision could be announced as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday on the fate of National and that could also be part of why this airport has the appearance of returning back to normal. National Airport handles some 42,000 passengers a day. Now, they have nowhere to go, so obviously some of them are spilling over here to Dulles International Airport and also to Baltimore-Washington International.
But by all appearances what we're hearing is that National Airport is likely to reopen but with some alterations. Perhaps every flight coming in and out of National will have a federal air marshal on board. Perhaps also there will be the elimination of general aviation, the private aircraft that have been the ones that would -- were the ones most likely to stray into that prohibited air space over Washington, the ones they had a tougher problem keeping reigned in in that respect.
So those are some of the potential changes we'll hear about next week.
KING: Kathleen Koch keeping track of developments at a reasonably busy Saturday morning at Dulles International Airport. We'll check in with you a bit later. Thank you, Kathleen.
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