CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — The terror attacks on 9/11 changed air travel forever, leading to big challenges both for the world’s busiest airport and the hometown airline, Delta.
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Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray looks at the changes in air travel and how some of the security rules we’ve gotten used to are about to change again.
Of course, you can’t go past Transportation Security Administration screening without a ticket or identification.
Security looser before 9/11
When Gray was a college student, he came down to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and raced the plane train on foot. Some people ran underneath the terminals, trying to beat the person on board the train.
Nobody was going anywhere. Nobody had tickets.
After 25 years of TSA screening, it’s hard to imagine how different airport travel was back then.
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Family members could greet loved ones right at the gate. A pre-911 Hartsfield-Jackson was a lot different: before TSA pat downs, before worries about liquids, before so much of the security we have gotten used to.
When Gray reported a story about vendors violating Atlanta’s pricing laws this year, Channel 2 had to buy plane tickets to get past security.
TSA testing security changes
But just days before 9/11, the TSA announced some changes, to make things a little more like they used to be.
With a program called Gateside being tested at 13 airports, TSA precheck members will once again be able to meet friends and family at the gate.
You will just need to apply online one to three days before your planned visit.
“We’re listening to our customers, and so our customers have been asking, ‘Hey, why can’t we accompany our elderly family member through a security checkpoint?’” TSA Administrator David Cummins said. “’Why can’t we greet our teenage son when they get off their plane?’ And so this is something that we haven’t had, really, for 25 years.”
Delta survived turbulence
The sharp drop in passenger demand after 9/11 and rising fuel costs caused turmoil and near financial collapse of much of the airline industry.
It was in 2005 it all came to head for Atlanta-based Delta, with $6 billion in losses $19 billion in debt. Our own Clark Howard predicted that day that Delta would never again be what it was.
There was a real concern the airline could go away completely.
“There’s no such thing as room for a full-fare airline. That’s why we’ve been going through all this agony with all the full-fare airlines. There’s no place for them,” Howard said.
But instead, Delta mounted an incredible comeback, $63 billion in revenue last year and now the most valuable airline in the world.
And Hartsfield-Jackson has grown, too, from 78 million passengers in 2001 to 106 million in 2025, still the world’s busiest airport.
Atlanta is not one of the airports currently offering Gateside, but TSA says it intends to roll it out to all 4,340 airports nationwide by the end of the year.
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