COMMENT: Seventeen years ago this week I set off from Auckland on a United Airlines flight to Los Angeles and transferred to another United flight to Boston. I was booked on a tour to travel from the Canadian border, down though New England, seeing the glorious autumn colours, learning the history and going south to Philadelphia, finishing in New York.
At LA, the flight to Boston left late and I was surprised how few passengers were on the plane. I was in first class and there was only one other occupant, a man sitting in the back row. The curtain to economy was not drawn and there were just seven men back there scattered around the cabin.
The trip across the country was a joy, a cloudless day. My husband and I had driven extensively years before through the Rockies and deserts and national parks. To see it all laid out beneath the plane was spectacular. The hostess did not seem to know what we were flying over but I think we had crossed Lake Michigan and Lake Erie when night encompassed us very quickly.
I dozed off and awoke to movement in the cabin. The man in first class had gone back and was talking to the men now grouped in the rear cabin. I am certain we had passed over the Twin Towers, quite low, when the captain came on the intercom saying the plane would arrive late as he had taken a wide detour to avoid a storm coming in from the east and affecting the Boston area.
I noted in my diary it was 10.15pm when we landed at Boston's Logan Airport. There were no staff in the arrivals hall. I walked past closed offices and shuttered stalls and when I went to pick up my bag there were only two other cases on the carousel. I felt quite panicky as I had been told by my travel agent there was a regular shuttle bus to the city that would take me to the Tremont hotel. I could find no phone, I didn't have a cellphone then, and there were no taxis to be seen.