The payoff to the families was in lieu of suing the airlines. If they had been sued they would have been out of business by now. Sad but true. Since we have no way to get the money back from the dead terrorists and their cohorts we are paying the bill.......left to us by X42's regime.
I know it was a payoff, but it was still the wrong decision.
1. The airlines are going broke, laying off employees and cutting payrolls anyway. The payoff didn't accomplish a thing.
2. We should have let the legal system sort this out. Maybe suing an airline because of the actions of terrorists would have finally ended our tort system?
3. Now we've opened up the floodgates. We've set a very bad precedent (as bad a precedent as our tort system). Remember that some families of the OKC bombing victims and other TERRORIST acts were coming forward and bitching after that. What about the next attack?
Besides, if the airlines were out of business I wouldn't have to fly my ass all over the world to solve the petty problems of the manufacturing companies I support;)