The airport’s annual observance expanded for the anniversary with an Honor Guard procession, bagpiper, moment of silence and a ceremony beside its World Trade Center steel memorial.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport and TSA marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks with an expanded remembrance ceremony in the terminal.
- Charlotte Douglas International Airport and TSA held an expanded September 11 remembrance ceremony on the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
- The observance included an Honor Guard procession, a bagpiper, remarks from airport and TSA leaders, and a moment of silence for the nearly 3,000 victims.
- The ceremony took place near Checkpoint 3 beside CLT’s memorial containing a small steel fragment recovered from the World Trade Center ruins.
- TSA was formally established in November 2001 in direct response to the September 11 attacks, making aviation security central to the anniversary’s significance.
(NEWS) CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, United States, 2026-Sep-11 — /Travel PR News/ — Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks reshaped air travel and aviation security in the United States, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and the Transportation Security Administration marked the anniversary with an expanded remembrance ceremony inside the airport terminal.
The September 11 observance, part of an annual tradition at CLT, brought together airport and TSA personnel for an Honor Guard procession, a bagpiper, remarks from aviation-security leaders and a moment of silence for the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. CLT’s account of the ceremony describes this year’s event as substantially larger than previous observances because of the 25th anniversary.
The setting gave the ceremony an additional connection to the events being remembered. It took place in the east ticketing lobby near Checkpoint 3, where the airport maintains a memorial containing a small piece of steel recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center, accompanied by a plaque honoring those who died, including first responders.
Haley Gentry, chief executive officer of Charlotte Douglas International Airport, said the anniversary carried particular significance for the aviation community, including airline employees, crews, passengers and others whose lives were changed by the attacks. CLT is also American Airlines’ second-largest hub, a role the airport says reinforces the scale of its connection to the U.S. air transport system.
A remembrance tied directly to aviation security
The anniversary is inseparable from the security changes that followed September 11. The TSA’s official history records that the agency was formally created on November 19, 2001, when the Aviation and Transportation Security Act became law, shifting responsibility for civil aviation security into a new federal agency formed in direct response to the attacks.
At CLT, Acting Federal Security Director Jose Bonilla used the ceremony to recommit TSA personnel to that mission, describing the agency as an organization formed in a period of national crisis around principles of service, innovation and resolve.
The airport also published an official video of the remembrance ceremony, documenting the procession and terminal gathering for passengers and members of the public who were not present.
For a major connecting hub such as Charlotte, the ceremony linked institutional memory with the security environment passengers encounter every day. The memorial beside the checkpoint makes that connection especially visible: a physical remnant of the World Trade Center placed within the contemporary airport journey, where TSA screening procedures remain one of the most enduring changes to U.S. aviation since 2001.
