(The Associated Press circulated the following article on August 13.)
WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — Eric Eisenberg flew home to Alabama from his New England vacation Saturday out of Bradley International Airport, avoiding the crowds and larger security lines in New York and Boston.
“I’d much rather go through a small airport like this,” said Eisenberg, 39, of Birmingham, who was traveling with his 3-year-old son. “I figure, A, it’s just more convenient, but, B, terrorists are probably going to go to the more populated places and they aren’t going to a small airport like Hartford.”
Barry Pallanck, Bradley’s airport administrator, acknowledges that an increased terror threat is probably not going to result in people changing tickets they have already purchased just to fly out of smaller airports. But, if new security measures remain in place for a long time, more people like Eisenberg probably will make the decision to bypass the major travel hubs for lower-hassle alternatives, he said.
“We won’t have the taxi delays and the air congestion delays that New York and Boston have,” he said. “It’s easier to get in and out, and the lines are shorter. That is all very attractive to people.”
Bradley handles about 390 takeoffs and landings each day, compared to more 2,100 at Logan in Boston, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Debbie Ingalls, 49, of Ludlow, Mass., said when it comes to choosing between the two, she always flies out of Bradley.
“It so hard, just the traffic getting into Boston, and then Logan itself is just crazy,” said Ingalls, who was flying to Cincinnati on Saturday.
The two airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 were hijacked after they took off from Logan.
T.F. Green airport in Warwick, R.I. handles about 480 flights each day. That’s where Joyce DiBattista, a high school teacher from Smithfield, R.I. stood in line Saturday taking swigs from a water bottle before dumping it into a green recycling receptacle.
DiBattista, who was heading to Atlantic City, N.J., said Thursday’s news of a planned attack on airlines made her anxious, but didn’t cause her to change her plans.
“If I were in Europe, I would have definitely waited before I traveled again,” DiBattista said. “The international airports, they’re the ones that are being targeted right now.”
Some people were avoiding all airports.
Jennifer Routhier, 25, of New York City was supposed to fly home from Boston Friday night. She decided to cancel her flight and take Amtrak’s Acela Express train on Saturday.
“I didn’t want to deal with the massive amounts of people at the airport and the traffic on the way to the airport,” she said.
Joe O’Connell, a porter for Amtrak at Boston’s South Station, said that most of the company’s express trains between Boston and New York were sold out on Thursday and Friday.
Daniel Naughton, a Yale student, was taking Amtrak from New Haven to Philadelphia, where he planned to fly overseas later Saturday.
He said the terrorist threats won’t keep him from using the major airports.
“It’s more likely to die in a cab ride going to the airport that in an aircraft,” he said.