International air travel between Europe and the United States resumed Friday, September 14, with European carriers announcing their first westward flights a few hours after the first US airlines got back in the air on the same routes.
After the better part of a day, during which only US carriers were allowed to take off for the United States, the main carriers in Britain, France and Germany announced that they were resuming their services either late Friday or early Saturday.
In Paris, Air France said that its first flight, carrying 294 passengers bound for Atlanta, took off in early evening. Earlier, an American Airlines plane took off from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, while two Delta Airlines flights also left for Atlanta.
A US Airways flight heading to Chicago was also ready for take-off: "the passengers are on board. The pilots are just waiting for permission to land in the US," said an airport official. No planes were as yet allowed to fly to New York from Paris, the official said. Two British Airways planes, however, were due to fly out of London for New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, and a third for Philadelphia, during the evening.
Late Friday, the first of two Boeing 747 aircraft left London's Heathrow airport empty and will bring back passengers who have been stranded in the US. The second aircraft, which will carry some passengers, was also due to leave Heathrow Friday evening, while another so-called "positioning flight" will leave to collect passengers from Philadelphia. And in Frankfurt, the German carrier Lufthansa said it would be resuming its transatlantic flights early on Saturday.
Three days after terrorists hijacked four US domestic airliners and crashed them in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, killing all aboard and thousands on the ground, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) cautiously allowed US carriers to return to the skies early Friday, amid unprecedented security. Later in the day some non-US carriers were allowed to resume.
Some flights from earlier in the week, which had been re-routed through Canada after the disaster, were also allowed to complete their journeys. The first westbound transatlantic flights Friday included two Delta Airlines flights which took off from Madrid shortly after 1100 GMT, bound for Atlanta and Cincinnati, Ohio.
The same airline had planes take off from Rome at 0945 GMT bound for Atlanta. An American Airlines plane took off from London's Heathrow airport at 1015 GMT bound for Chicago. Northwest Airlines resumed flights taking off from Amsterdam bound for Detroit. Several other planes made transpacific flights between Asia and North America.
Most passengers were US citizens stranded after flights were suspended following Tuesday's terrorist attacks. The FAA said Thursday it had scrapped a plan to use Delta Force commandos to protect civilian flights because it was impractical.
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta had earlier asked the Department of Defense to provide the elite anti-terrorist forces to protect planes. According to the FAA, some 200 US airports had reopened by Thursday. In Brussels, meanwhile, European transport ministers met and agreed to ask the International Civil Aviation Organization to implement tighter security on flights worldwide. ― (AFP, Paris)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
