OUT OF THE BLUE
The new age of flying
By Elliott Hester

Dressed in my navy-blue flight attendant uniform, a pair of gold wings glinting from my lapel, I am driving to Miami International Airport on my first day back to work since September 11. Prior to the terrorist attacks, a security guard would sit inside the guard post at the employee parking lot entrance, looking up from his newspaper long enough to glimpse what he assumed to be my airline ID. But like everything else at the airport, his diligence, or lack thereof, has changed forever.

Today, as I prepare to enter the parking lot, the guard stands outside his enclosure. He leans toward my open window, squints at my ID and nods approvingly.

While searching for a parking space in the sea of employee cars, I hear a news report on the radio. An intoxicated passenger was arrested in Chicago after assaulting a crew member on a flight from Los Angeles. Shaking my head at the absurdity, I reflect on other recent reports: a mentally deranged man burst into the cockpit of an American Airlines flight; a passenger drew a plastic dinner knife across his own neck in an attempt to threaten the Continental Airlines crew; a man was detained by authorities after passing a disturbing note to a Delta Airlines flight attendant; after three passengers inexplicably opened an emergency window exit, they were removed from a United Airlines flight and questioned by FBI agents.

These incidents are newsworthy, but they are not new. Passengers were forcibly removed from airplanes this month, last month, and all the months before that. Flight attendants have been assaulted, suspicious notes passed, window exits opened, and cockpits broken into by crazed intruders (three times in March, 2000 alone).

What is new, however, is the government's response to these acts. A couple of years ago, a passenger punched my female colleague in the face and flew home, unpunished, on a later flight. The passenger who passed a disturbing note to a Delta attendant was arrested after F-16 fighter jets escorted the plane to Newark International Airport.

What a difference a September day makes.

I park my car, grab my roll-aboard from the trunk, walk to the employee bus stop and stand next to two pilots. Their faces seem haggard and worn. "Some pilots are pretty shaken up," a flight attendant told me the other day. She went on to say that she encountered a distraught first officer in an airport elevator. "The pilot was shaking his head when he stepped inside," she said. "He broke down and started crying."

The cockpit is a stressful place these days. Because congress turned a cold shoulder to their request to carry firearms, some pilots have resorted to crude methods of defense. Fire axes, standard in most cockpits, are often out and within reach. A fire extinguisher may be tucked beneath a pilot seat. During the pre-flight briefing, the captain of one flight told the crew to "be ready." Referring to evasive flying maneuvers that would send hijackers bouncing off the ceiling, he said, "If you know something's happening you better buckle up, it's gonna' be a rough ride."

One cheerful captain stood at the boarding gate, greeting passengers. Most took this as a folksy gesture. But in reality, the captain was conducting his own security check. Earlier, he told flight attendants, "I want to know everybody who's getting on my airplane."

After the short bus ride to the airport terminal, I disembark and walk through the automatic doors. Aside from the sight of National Guardsmen and their brandished weapons, the terminal seems almost normal. As always, hundreds of passengers crisscross the concourse, rushed, bewildered or confused.

I weave through the madness, hop the escalator and eventually end up at airline operations. After signing in for my trip, I step into the crew lounge to see what's going on. A television program blabbers in the distance. There is a burst of flight attendant laughter. The clatter of a dozen competing conversations. Several colleagues sit at a table, picking at take-away food while sharing stories. "I worked with a flight attendant who had the shakes," said one of them. "He kept dropping stuff throughout the entire flight."

More comments come fast and furiously:

"Everyone looks like a terrorist."

"I'm afraid to fly."

"It's tense in the galley these days."

"Have you heard how many flight attendants resigned?" There is a moment of silence. Then suddenly, and without an appropriate segue, the conversation shifts to cosmetics. Lipstick. Eyeliner. Avon vs. Estee Lauder. I walk away, not only because I have no interest in the subject, but because it's time to fly.

Lines are long and slow-moving at the security checkpoint, but uniformed crew members are given priority. Many passengers are unaware of this policy, and as I step to the front of the line they show their displeasure with silent, white-hot stares.

The metal detector does not shriek. My roll-aboard is hand checked and approved. I approach the departure gate, lumber along the jet bridge and enter a deserted Boeing 757.

To be alone on a commercial jet is always a creepy feeling. But today, I gaze at the sea of empty seats and feel a sudden, knee-wobbling impact. Before my crew arrives and the captain conducts his security briefing, before we load the galley ovens, set up the liquor carts and prepare to board a full compliment of passengers, I suddenly understand what that pilot was feeling. The one who stepped into the airport elevator, shook his head and cried.