Post 9/11 travellers: fear is still in the air

The man who pays his way

On this date in 2001, you were a decade younger – possibly more optimistic, probably more naive. Among the wealth of wisdom you have acquired in the intervening years is an understanding of how a few evil men can ambush some of man's greatest technical achievements – civilian airliners – to cause grief on an immense scale.

As we remember the victims of 9/11, this weekend will, quite properly, be heavy with emotion and empathy. On Monday, I imagine, those of us who are not burdened with sadness by the loss of a loved one in the attacks will get on with our lives. For travellers, that involves a continuous process of risk assessment.

Should I book airline A or B? Does this rental car have the power safely to overtake that truck? Is the man knocking at the door really a hotel employee? All potential life-and-death decisions, but also risks you feel equipped to assess. A bigger problem for 21st-century travellers is this: what should I be afraid of?

*** When airline passengers fall victim to terrorist outrages, the rest of us become acutely aware of what we should have feared. In 1988, no-one worried that it was easy to check a bag on to a transatlantic flight without boarding the plane – until that bleak midwinter's night when a bomb hidden in a suitcase exploded aboard Pan Am 103 from Heathrow to New York. The Boeing 747 crashed at Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives.

Ten years ago tonight, thousands of families went to bed unaware that, the following day, their lives would be torn apart.

On 11 September 2001, our vulnerability to evil was exposed to another order of magnitude. Four hijacked planes were used as guided weapons to kill almost 3,000 people. The lessons of what we should fear have, since then, shaped our travelling lives.

We passengers trust each other a little less, while aviation security rules deem everyone to pose an equal potential threat. From the Captain downwards, everyone planning to fly is presumed to be intent on mass murder until a regulation search demonstrates otherwise.

Yet keeping innocent people safe demands more acumen than merely confiscating nail scissors and 200ml bottles of sunscreen. The murderers of 9/11 all passed airport security searches. Effort squandered on the mindless application of rules could be better deployed on intelligence and imagination to thwart future outrages. I would worry less were I challenged more: the journey patterns of a travel journalist should arouse instant suspicion.

*** To terrorists, civilian aircraft and their human payloads comprise a fatal attraction. They are inherently vulnerable, and present a chance to kill hundreds of people in a single act. Their destruction creates emotional wreckage that endures in the tears of the victims' loved ones.

Yet passenger planes also symbolise the achievements and aspirations of a generation without frontiers. In 10 years, much has changed. But I stand by what I wrote here on 15 September 2001:

"Tuesday's tragedy would be amplified still further if it were allowed to crush travellers' spirit of adventure, and the power for good that aviation represents. Airlines bring people together. That is what they are for. And, as grief resonates around the world, unity is what we need more than ever."

It's not what you know, but where you go

Knowing what to be afraid of is difficult; but a wise traveller can calculate where to be afraid.

Start at the airport. Given terrorists' propensity for attacking all things aviation-related, should you or I be free to wander through the "landside" areas at Heathrow or JFK? And long queues for security themselves comprise a threat to security.

The British traveller, like the UK as a whole, comprises more of a target since we blundered into Iraq alongside the Americans. All the more reason to be aware of known risks abroad. Once again this week, a great city in India was targetted by terrorists: after July's bombings in Mumbai, an explosion outside the High Court in Delhi killed 12 people.

The Foreign Office says India has "a high threat from terrorism". Other leading tourist destinations in that category include Turkey, Egypt and Thailand (but not Morocco or Israel, which present only a "general threat"). I would happily go to any of these nations tomorrow, but I would not plan to linger in the lobby of a large Western hotel.