Air services yet to gain normality

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, SEPT. 15. Two days after the Department of Transportation allowed the nation's skies to be re-opened for air traffic, the system is yet to show signs of even limping back to normality.

On Saturday morning, Boston's Logan International Airport re- opened leaving Washington's Reagan National Airport the only major airport still closed to air traffic. Washington's Dulles International Airport is operational but arrivals and departures are on a highly truncated basis.

Federal authorities are not saying when Reagan National will re- open but the fact that this airport is close to major installations, government and otherwise, is what is holding matters. The thinking is that even if the airport re-opens soon, it will be under highly restrictive conditions.

Private planes are also being allowed to take to the skies but in view of the tight security environment in Washington and New York, there is a 48-km ban around the cities. All major airlines who had shut down operations from Tuesday are finding it difficult to get moving given that all of them have to comply with new and highly tightened security procedures.

Major international airlines have started flying empty planes into the U.S. to take back the thousands who have been stranded across the country in the last several days. And travel agents are convinced that it is going to be many more days before things get back on track.

If air travel is going to involve more time, there is simply no way out of the situation. Those days when domestic travellers showed up at the departure gate just five or 10 minutes before a flight with an ``e-ticket'', or electronic ticket, are gone.

Now every travelling passenger must show up at the counters; there is no curb side checking facility and there are very elaborate security screening mechanisms. The advice to domestic passengers is to show up at least two hours before their flight to give room for the new conditions in place.

If the four hijackings of Tuesday leading to a day of terror had stunned authorities and the intelligence agencies, experts and those knowledgeable on terrorism are saying that the U.S. must brace itself for attacks elsewhere and perhaps of a different kind.

In fact, law makers who have been routinely briefed in the last several days by the Central Intelligence Agency have said that the agency would not rule out further attacks and has said that there would to be caution ``for a considerable period of time''. And given what has taken place this week, there is also the concern if terrorists could be looking at the next steps by way of using more deadlier tactics like in the use of chemical and nuclear weapons.

There is no doubt of a new and higher level of security in the nation's capital. On Saturday, the expectation is that the President, Mr. George W. Bush, will be meeting with his National Security team at Camp David where the Vice-President, Mr. Dick Cheney, is already staying.

What is being made known is that the travel plans and movement of the President is going to be even more tightly guarded. The President's movements are in the control of the Secret Service and Mr. Bush has given every indication that he is going to abide by what this protective agency comes up with.

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Section  : International
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