And then the ground folks have to call 911? Don't they have some emergency button they can hit? Everyone of the ground people are bureaurcratic idiots you can tell are having to fill out their precious forms and ask their worthless questions.
All of this time delay kept the proper people from being notified in time to send Air Force jets up to determine the threat.
Every single one of those people on the ground should be fired and the entire operation reorganized by someone with a brain!
Easy, FM. Later in the call it was explained that Betty contacted the reservations center. -- <assumption> maybe she had speed dial set up on her phone to check in for assignments, etc.</assumption> -- I doubt a reservations call center whould set up for emergency call dispatching (esp. pre-9/11) and even if they had a way, it probably hadn't been used in years.
Next, I think the seat number question was due to thinking she was a passenger and it must be SOP to try and tie the name to a manifest. Betty's saying "I'm #3 on the flight" might not have significance to the worker in the department handling the call.
In the very short timespan of the conversations they determined the flight was hijacked, ATC was notified, radio contact attempted, and realization that the transponder was turned off. It was a little rough but other then the emergency ops guy, I'm not sure how many of the participants had proper training and the day-to-day experience that let's you stay cool when "OMG, someone on the flight is telling me it's been hijacked" is running inside your mind.