Air Travel

As the big airlines hemorrhaged money and talked about the need to get even bigger, the small airlines discovered the safety issue. Within days of the disaster, Jonathan Ornstein, the CEO of Mesa Airlines, a commuter carrier based in Phoenix, announced that he was hiring his own corps of unarmed security personnel. Given their tiny fleets, enthusiastic employees and more nimble management, outfits such as JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines redesigned and reinforced cockpit doors within two weeks. The big carriers will need months, at a minimum. "Past practice has been to wait and see what others will do," explains Thomas Nunn, Frontier's director of safety. "This was no time to wait." Both JetBlue and Frontier are also making plans to install cameras to monitor the passenger cabin from the cockpit.

And the public has responded. JetBlue, Frontier, AirTran and that big small airline, Southwest, are flying full planes and making money. Clearly, consumers will pay for a sense of security.

Airlines always point out that flying is the safest means of transport. And the reason is that the airlines and the government have created a culture of safety that puts everything else (like comfort) second; a system of inspection, mechanical redundancies and training builds concentric rings of safety around a tube of metal filled with humans. Says McKenna: "We've created a system in which everyone involved with a flight understands that he or she is responsible for the safe conduct of that flight, and most people take that responsibility seriously. If we can do that with security, American passengers will be very secure." If we don't, we now know what we can expect.