Right After 9-11

Yeah, I'm kind of stuck on that day right now. I got to thinking about work right after 9-11. See, here's the thing. The month before 9-11 we hit record traffic levels. That's the number of "operations per day", the sheer number of aircraft we worked on a daily basis.

We'd gone from having breaks during the day when the traffic levels died down, to always being busy. It takes a lot of concentration when you're busy, and after about an hour you start to feel it. After a couple hours you're starting to feel a bit brain dead. Not good.

9-11 solved a lot of that for us. Sorry, but true.

The first day they weren't letting hardly anyone fly. Then slowly they started approving more flights to take to the air.

We had a whole bunch of new rules we had to follow too. Not fun, but we were used to the rules changing on us suddenly.

Anyway, about two weeks after 9-11 I was working a high altitude sector. Just to give you an idea how tense everyone is, both on the ground and in the air, one of the personal jets that was on my frequency said the following over the frequency:
"Roger Cleveland, direct to Marquette. If we make it that far."

"November three-forty-nine, say again?"

No response.

"American twenty-eight, did that sound ... strange to you?"

"It sounded strange to Execjet one-eleven."

"Yeah, it sounded strange to us too Cleveland."

"November three-forty-nine, anything you want to tell me?"

"Uh, negative Cleveland."

I reported the incident to my supervisor and we kept an eye on the aircraft until he landed in Marquette. Needless to say, nothing happened. But yeah, we were all quick to think the worst when he'd said that.