Associated Press

Members of teh Virginia National Guard's 229th Military Police unit assist police and security personnel at the reopened Reagan National Airport.

Friday October 5, 2001

WASHINGTON - To skycap Abraham Pailey's ears, the roar of US Airways Shuttle Flight 6850 was the sound of getting back to business.

But just like the gleaming, nearly-empty terminal at Reagan National Airport, Pailey's wallet won't look the way it did it was before the Sept. 11 attacks led to a shutdown. It will be thinner.

New federal rules prohibit curbside check-in, denying skycaps the tips that Pailey said had provided 85 percent of their income. People won't be accustomed to tipping them in their new role of shuttler of baggage to and from security

scans.

"It's great to be back to work," Pailey, the father of three, said yesterday as

the first flights resumed. "But it's going to take some time. People don't know

to tip because it's new. And we're not allowed to ask."

Besides, he said, not many people are flying on the airport's 100 flights a day.

"It's dead," he said. "D-E-A-D."

Indeed, security people, journalists and officials far outnumbered regular travelers in the soaring, newly buffed terminal yesterday as passenger flights

took off and landed for the first time since the attacks on the World Trade

Center in New York and on the Pentagon, the airport's Arlington, Va., neighbor.

The few passengers that drifted beneath the American flags hanging from the ceiling seemed comforted by the U.S. marshals and beret-wearing military police.

Seth Morris and his family were the picture of calm two hours before their flight was to shuttle them to Dallas for a bar mitzvah.

"I feel a lot more anxiety taking the train, where there seems to be no security," said Morris, a frequent train traveler to New York City.

Vendors and airlines hope more travelers take that attitude especially as the holidays approach. But one airline executive expressed concern that long waits could slow the restoration of passenger loads on short-haul flights.

"I'm hoping it can be cut back," said Stephen M. Wolf, US Airways chairman.

"The personal pleasure traveler is starting to come back already. We also see signs of business travelers coming back."

Other plans are in the works, such as the Washington Tourism and Convention Corp.'s $5 million-$10 million campaign to entice travelers to the nation's capital.

"Reopening National Airport is a good first step, probably symbolically more important than it is from an economic perspective," said corporation president Bill Hanbury, who estimates that 10,000 tourism industry workers lost their jobs due to the attacks and the airport's closure.

"We have a long way to go."

The start of that journey was tense and busy beyond the metal detectors, through which only ticketed passengers and flight crew members were allowed.

But they, too, said the presence of more law enforcement seemed to comfort everyone. As many as 10 plainclothes air marshals, whose identities are known only by the crew, ride on each flight.

"People are sedate, almost helpful," said Wayne Lance, a Continental Airlines crew member whose luggage sported an American flag. "They are very thankful to us when we land. I've had hugs from a few passengers."