#INTHEAIREVERYWHERE

Heide Enfield
Head of Marketing & PR
Lufthansa Cargo Charter Agency

     I still remember every detail about where I was. I was on a business trip with my colleague Manfred from then Hamburg to Tallin, changing planes in Stockholm. As we arrived late, we had missed the connecting flight. So we went to the SAS counter to rearrange our bookings and to call the guy in Tallin to let him know we’d be coming one flight later. When I had him on the phone he said, with exactly these words, “There is a war going on in NY,” and he told me about the planes and the Twin Towers. Turning to the guy at the counter, we asked for more details and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Ah well, two planes hit the Twin Towers,” turned around and left. So Manfred and I found a bar with a TV and the first thing we realized was that it was absolutely packed, but also absolutely silent. When we saw the TV screen we knew why.
     I don’t think I thought anything; I just felt. It was so unbelievable and although I felt utterly devastated, at the same time, I couldn’t believe that what I saw really happened. For the two days in Tallin we were glued to the TV every minute and still, it felt somehow unreal… like a bad movie. Could anybody really do something like that in real life? Somebody did, and at one point, one had to accept it was true. I came to NY in December of the same year and my friend took me to ground zero. A lot of people were still standing there and being absolute strangers, we still hugged and talked.
     (That day) sure has changed air cargo with all the security issues. But much more important, it has changed the world, and not for the better. Whole countries are supposed to be ‘bad’ now and mistrust is spreading. Wars are and have been going on because of it, with many reasons to doubt their cause. A few years ago I got to know somebody from New York; she is a friend and very dear to me. When I asked her years ago, after 9/11 of course, where she was from, she said, “I am from somewhere bad.” When I asked her where that would be, she said, “Pakistan.” That is what 9/11 has changed – people think of their own home country as ‘bad’ just because others do. How sad is that? There are only bad people and you find them anywhere in the world, not bad countries nor bad confessions. To promote this sort of thinking is the biggest success the terrorists had, and it is also the one people can easily turn into a failure by just not following it. No wars, weapons and victims needed; just brains and heart.