Coming from this thread on airport-related things you wouldn’t see in post-9/11 films, I was wondering when exactly airports nationwide got security checkpoints with metal detectors. I know it had to be sometime after the early 70s, because when Kansas City International Airport was built, it was specifically designed so you could go directly from your car to the gate, and retrofitting security to every gate has been a pain in the butt ever since. Was there a single event that triggered the security upgrades, or were they just phased in? What was the public reaction?
According to Wikipedia screening measures were started in the late 60’s in the United States, but it wasnt until 1973 that passenger and luggage screening became mandatory.
Thanks for the link. I should have checked Wikipedia first; the last time I looked at that article, it was much shorter.
So how much did all of this cost to implement? How did people react to such a huge change?
I was born in 1978. I remember when I was younger, flying back from visiting my grandparents, I would get off the plane and meet my parents right at the gate. I can’t recall what security measures were in place then, but according to the Wikipedia link there must’ve been luggage screening. When did it change so that you can only be at the gate if you have a boarding pass?
I presume this was the motivation:
Universal luggage screening for domestic passengers wasn’t started until after 9/11. People were free to put bombs in their checked bags all day long. Surprisngly few planes blew up because of it.
Long before that they did verify that all passengers who checked luggage actually boarded the plane. Makes you less likely to put a bomb in your luggage if you have to get aboard with it. The majority of potential plane bombers aren’t suicide bombers.
I began traveling extensively in 2000. I remember the days when you could meet someone at the gate… but it changed quickly after that. For Minneapolis/St Paul, at least, i’m betting this policy changed not long after 9/11.
True but it was an amazingly easy to exploit loophole that no terrorist group exploited. There was one scare supposedly tied to the Unabomber with bombs on lots of planes but it wasn’t real. I don’t remember where that one came from but it was some kind of scare letter centered around LAX.
I and my friends graduated high school in 2000, and I remember getting them at the gate in Oakland Airport on their first trip back home from college. This would be winter 2000-2001 at the latest.
The only airport I know of that you couldn’t do this at before 9/11 was Miami, and I think it was a people-herding measure because that airport is so small compared to the amount of traffic it gets, not a security measure.
I still don’t understand why you can’t do it anymore. I also don’t understand why you have to show your ID to get your boarding pass, show it 3 more times to get through security, then show it again at the gate. I can’t possibly fathom how this could be a security measure given the ease with which fake IDs can be obtained.
Also, at Los Angeles, they never checked to see if your name and the name on the ticket was the same. Until after the Unabomber started his shenanigans. many’s the time I flew with my boss’s unused tickets.
Also Logan. They had some higher than average security measures before 9/11. I don’t think terrorists would have tempted to penetrate there :dubious:
I suspect a lot of these “security measures” are more about saving money than providing any kind of security.
My dad worked for a large airline, so when I was 16 I could hop in the car and start driving towards the airport whenever I wanted to get out of town (go see my brother in San Diego, or my grandparents in LA, or friends in Miami, or friends in DC . . . ) On the way to the airport I’d call a 1-800 number, punch in a few digits, and be done with it. I’d show generic tickets that we kept at home by the pound and hop on the plane. No ID. Never any lines at security.
Those were glory days. Flying has been made a mess of since then.
When I flew to college in 1973 it was the first time I passed through a metal detector to get on the plane (I’d flown a couple of times previously, and there were no detectors then). Aside from that, however, there was no security. The “jettys” were still there – usually asphalt pathways atop the passenger tunnels that you could go outside on and watch people getting onto or off of the plane*. People could come on board without a ticket or reservation – just the cash needed to pay for the flight. Nobody checked people or their luggage, aside from the metal detector.
Shortly thereafter they started tightening up. No more on-board ticket buying. No more jetties. Visitors couldn’t come with you past a certain point. Many years later they started x-raying all carry ons. It wasn’t until after 9-11 that they started getting draconian.
- (see the French film La Jetee, in which the titular “jetee” = “jetty” was just such an airport Jetty. the film was remade as 12 Monkeys, by which time the jetties were long gone, so they would’ve had to change the title, anyway.)
I can beat that. On September 10, 2001, I drove someone to the airport and accompanied her as far as the jetway, even though I was unticketed and had a small Swiss Army knife on my keychain. (I had to remove it from my pocket, but there was no problem with my carrying it.)
Yes, the US-Havana route got quite crowded in the late 60’s:
List of Cuba-US aircraft hijackings
There were 33 attempts at hijacking a US plane to Cuba in 1969 alone.
The fad pretty much died by 1974.
I never flew without a pocket knife before 9/11. They were allowed as long as the blade was under (IIRC) 6 inches.
In 1972/3 I worked for a guy who put a bomb on a plane in 1974. He and his brother (who had just gotten out of prison for murder) hatched a plan to put a bomb on a plane out of Cleveland. Its flight plan took it over Lake Erie where the explosion was to take place. Guess there thinking was that there wouldn’t be any bodies to be found or counted. The brother bought a ticket for the flight and took out a bunch of insurance. The bomb didn’t go off and was later found in unclaimed baggage. He ended up getting 25 years.
On the plus side, my b-i-l also work for him. Over the course of time he spent a bunch of his money on various things for the business. When he turned it in to get reimbursed, turned out the business was broke (thus the need for cash). He tried to take it off of his taxes but it was turned down by the IRS. A couple of days before he had to have the money paid in there was a story about an arrest for the bombing and a picture of our boss being led off by to jail by some federal marshalls. He took that in to the IRS office and after reading the article they decided maybe his boss was the kind of scumbag who would leave an employee out in the cold after all. So at least he got to use the deduction.