If you are older than the age of 25 and were around airplanes and airports prior to 2001, then you remember the days when you could walk your loved ones to the gate for the tearful goodbye. Those days disappeared the day after September 11, 2001. Well, those days are back. You can walk your loved one to the airport gate again, at least in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh International Airport has been working in conjunction with the Transportation Safety Administration (better known as the TSA) to allow friends of travelers to go throw the screening process in order to get their loved ones to the gate.
As a boy I remember going with my Dad, Mom and sister to the airport to see my Dad off for a business trip. He would check in at the counter, then we walked down the terminal with him. We would get to the gate, he would hand them his paper ticket, we would hug his neck (I can still smell the Skin Bracer as I write), tell him, “I love you Daddy” and he would walk out the gate, across the tarmac and walk up the stairs to the plane.
Younger readers will ask, “what about the metal detector”? They did not really come into widespread use until after D. B. Cooper’s hijacking exploits in 1971 (see: https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/db-cooper-hijacking ) .
What about the jet way? They did not come into widespread use until the late 1970s. In either case, you could still walk your loved one to the gate. That changed after 9/11.
It is hard for me to admit that anything good could come out of Pittsburgh. As a Bengals fan, I still smart from the wounds administered by the Steel Curtain back in the 1970s and more recently by Big Ben and company. Ditto for the Reds with their mighty battles with Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell in the 1970s and more recently with Andrew McCutcheon. But this actually seems like something good out of Pittsburgh.
I personally miss those days of walking family to the gate and hope that the experiment in Pittsburgh goes well and that soon other major airports adopt the procedure. It is good to give your loved one, one last hug and warm goodbye at that cold gate.
See more details at : http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/08/30/pittsburgh-airport-will-allow-non-flyers-past-security-for-first-time-since-911.html