"Wary passengers look to smaller airports, rail lines"

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Wary passengers look to smaller airports, rail lines 
By PAT EATON-ROBB 
The Associated Press


WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. (AP) -- 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.

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