On a recent flight from Manchester UK to Philadelphia, the flight didn’t have the usual seatback entertainment that I expect on any long haul flight these days. Instead, it still had a few screens that showed a couple of films like back in the 1990s. I was annoyed because I always use the flight back to catch up on films I’ve missed.
I know it’s common to bash airlines, and there’s definitely reasons to. But I think flying in the so-called golden age would have been awful. Nothing to do but drink, smoke, and read. Even with the introduction of in flight films, you still didn’t get to pick what you wanted to see and they were edited anyway.
Ok, they served food, even on domestic flights. And, I understand they weren’t as stingy on the drink service.
But today, I can handle everything from the phone I hold in my hand. Just this morning, I checked fares to Amsterdam. No calling a travel agent just because I think I might join a friend in AMS for a week but wanted to ballpark fares first. And, of course, there’s no worrying about losing the ticket or leaving it on the counter.
Anyway, what say you Dopers who flew back in the ‘golden age’
I’m not sure if the 1990s were the golden age of flying, but seats were bigger, there was more legroom, and you were more likely to have an empty seat or seats next to you. I shudder at the idea of smoke on an airplane now, but I liked smoking back then. And there’s nothing wrong with reading on a flight. The free food was terrible, but the stuff you pay money for now isn’t very good either. And you got free alcoholic drinks on long haul flights.
Going back a ways, when I was small I was allowed to ride in the cockpit on short-haul flights. And kids got little “pilot’s wings” made out of metal!
I do like the large amount of free entertainment and smoke-free planes. I can’t say the rest of the experience is very good.
From what I can tell, the whole “Golden Age of Flying” thing has more to do with people treating a flight like a special occasion. Dressing formally was the norm and the more affluent the passenger, the more stylish the outfits. It was mainly the affluent who flew as opposed to the common herd. Flying commercially was fairly new, and thus more glamorous. Also, the flight attendants were more likely to be stewardesses. And stewardesses back then were required to keep to a certain, ahem, desirable standard. There’s a reason that the term “stewardess” gave off a vibe like the term “French maid”.
Was the food terrible? Early airline ads made a big to do over how great the food was.
I’ve always taken the “golden age” to be the pre-deregulation days.
Define “bigger”. The seat width on single aisle planes has stayed pretty much the same since the 707, as there’s really no advantage to making them narrower. The seats on some widebody planes have gotten narrower though, for example on the 777 they can squeeze in an extra seat per row in economy by using narrower seats.
And I keep hearing people claim that airlines keep moving the seats closer together, but I don’t see much evidence of this. 31" seat pitch has been pretty much standard since the early 2000s at least, and that’s still what most airlines use now, the exemptions being the super cheap airlines like Spirit. And with thinner seat backs legroom can actually increase while keeping seats the same distance apart.
I’ve found that the quality of the food increased noticeably after the began charging for it. It’s not five star restaurant quality but I’ve generally found it to be reasonably good.
Most if not all airlines have brought that back now.
And it was a special occasion because it was so expensive most ordinary people didn’t do it very often.
I remember hearing that one of the reasons airlines provided more elaborate meals on long haul flights was because it was essentially a form of entertainment. Eating a big, elaborate, multi-course meals gave the passengers something to do on a long flight.
I flew in the early 60s. There was more room (though at that age, I didn’t need it). The food was about the same as you get today (except for when I flew Air France a few years ago). I do remember that the drink carts went through more than once.
There was an in-flight movie on monitors throughout the cabin. Ours didn’t work properly (this was before home VCRs; I’m not sure what system was being used back then), so they gave up after a few tries.
So I spent the time reading. This was a big plus. A couple of hours to do nothing but read a book was heaven.
The big propliners offered amenities galore, including decent food and ample room, but were slow, vibrated a bit, couldn’t climb over the weather, needed multiple stops on long trips, and had a lot of smokers onboard (not their fault). People dressed up to fly because it was a big deal - it was expensive as hell, even with government subsidies (to carry airmail) and a rare occasion for most. The advent of jets improved comfort and speed, but also introduced higher-volume, lower-cost imperatives to airline management that have led to all the changes people now decry - that became especially true with deregulation of fares (in the US) in 1978.
So, the glamour and luxury are gone except for the few in First Class, but now pretty much anyone can afford to go pretty much anywhere at any time. That’s not a bad way to measure goldenness.
You could show up any time before your flight actually started to taxi because you didn’t need to allow time to be searched and to stand in a long line of other people waiting to be searched (some advance time was needed at busy airports but not nearly as much as now, and very little at less busy hours or places). You could walk into the airport with anybody you wanted to see you off and hang out with them at the gate if the plane wasn’t ready to leave yet; wear what you felt like* because nobody would be telling you to take any of it off; carry whatever you wanted to eat and drink in your choice of containers if you didn’t feel like eating the airline food or just wanted something extra with you; keep your pocketknife with you, and for that matter your shampoo if you felt like it; not worry about whether your name was spelled exactly right on all of your documents because the only document you’d to need to show anybody, unless you were crossing national borders, was your ticket.
And I also had no problem with having a couple of hours with nothing to do but read, look out the window, and possibly talk to the person in the next seat if we both felt like it. Some people did puzzles, some people brought their knitting, some people wrote, some people played cards.
*by the time I was in my late teens, while some people still dressed up, others showed up in jeans and Tshirts. That shift came in the late 1960’s.
Flying was a lot better back then. I flew a bit in college (thanks to cheap student fares) and a ton when I started working in 1980. Things went downhill fast after deregulation.
Fares were reasonably rational, and there were travel agents who you used to book flights. Electronic ticketing is better than paper tickets though.
As mentioned you walked right to the gate. Someone could meet you at the gate also. That was a plus and made things a lot faster.
You didn’t get charged for bags. Ever, unless you were being unreasonable.
I’m not sure about seat width, but you sure had a lot more leg room.
I don’t buy meals on airplanes, but none I’ve seen look better than the stuff we used to get for free. When fares were regulated, airlines competed on food quality. Sure there were mediocre chunks of chicken, but I enjoyed quite good steak on Eastern Airlines. Try getting that now, even in business class. (I flew to Hong Kong business class. The food was good, but no better than coach food in the '70s and '80s.)
The atmosphere was a lot calmer. People were not trying to cram immense carryons in the overhead bins. Flight attendants seemed less harried.
Plus, there were relatively fewer people on planes, so you had less of a chance of getting crammed into a middle seat, especially flying for business.
I think most airlines charged for movies, but I much preferred to read. Airlines are doing away with seatback entertainment systems because people carry their own entertainment on board, fine with me.
Unless there was some weather disaster, I was hardly ever stressed. And when flying to visit my roommate in 1970 we missed a connecting flight in Houston due to a weather delay. We got a $25 voucher for dinner (a lot back then) and a free motel - and a nice one. Sure beats a grudging $10 at the airport McDonalds.
Some people dressed up. I never did. On the other hand, no one wore cutoff shorts and shorts showing men’s hairy armpits, so all the better.
You forgot “look out the window” and “talk to the person seated next to you” on your possible activities list.
My first flight was in 1968 or '69. Like other have mentioned, there was no security shake-down/strip search, you showed up and got on the airplane. Not even metal detectors at that point.
I was very young so room wasn’t an issue, and I don’t recall the flight being long enough for a meal. It was a prop plane and didn’t fly nearly as high as modern jets so the ride was a bit more bumpy (which, from my perspective, just made it more interesting). If you were prone to motion sickness flying back then was probably worse than today as today’s planes usually fly higher and avoid more of the weather likely to cause bumpiness.
When flying as a passenger I still usually take an old-fashioned tree book along to read. (When flying as a pilot other folks seem to frown on my indulging in a novel for some reason.)
I read, do crossword puzzles, etc. The time goes by fast.
The only question I would have about such activities in the past are things like: how well lighted are the cabins? Were there those little spotlights so you could see at night or during storms? How bouncy was it? Etc.
I was never a fan of in flight movies. Generic stuff, cut poorly, with a lousy view.
My earliest Flight was in 1973. From Milwaukee to Washington D.C. I and my older brother got to go up front and talk to the Pilot and Flight Engineer. I saved those, then plastic, wings for over 20 years before they were lost. Much less stressful flight. Then again, people did not demand instant entertainment 24/7. Our Cable company, in Marquette, Mi, had 5 Channels. The 3 majors, PBS and WKBD Channel 50 from Detroit. Now, People expect to be entertained instead of interacting. Not just the Golden Age of Flight but, Conversation as well.
The last time I flew domestic U.S. that was close to the earlier days was, on a flight from Detroit to Vegas on 9/23/2001. Plane half-empty and cheap upgrade to First Class. As I recall, it was $40 each way. The Casinos were the same way. Much less crowded and some machines were paying 105% just to bring people in.
Prices were regulated, so they couldn’t talk about how inexpensive their flights were. So ads focused on things like the food and how nice the service was.
I’ve been flying more or less since the 70s, and very extensively during the late 80s and 90s, and I think it was far, far more enjoyable than it is today. It was far less crowded, business class meals on long-distance flights were truly gourmet affairs and of course free, there may have been more legroom than today in many cases, security was far less of a hassle, and lots of other things I’m probably not remembering. Fares were also phenomenally lower, and points rewards systems far more generous.
I remember buying a flight to New York for my parents, myself, and my young son back in the day. I easily had enough points to pay for business class for everyone, in full, no extra costs involved. The business class section was at least half empty, so the flight attendants had an easy job. As soon as we got on board my son asked one of them, “Can I go up and see the cockpit?”. She said to wait until we were in the air. I thought she’d forget, but no, she was back once we were in level flight and took him up. A little later she came back to me and said, “You’ve gotta go up and see this”. So I went up to the cockpit, door wide open, and there was my son now sitting on the floor behind the center console between the two pilots, settled in like a piece of furniture, engaged in earnest conversation with the FO about what was going on. Eventually the flight attendants got the whole family up there to observe the proceedings. When he returned he had a little flight logbook and various other little gifts.
Now, trying doing that today!
The only downside of the old days is that the farther back you go, the less safe flying was, even though it was still extremely safe. But the early 707s and DC-8s really did have the sorts of issues you might expect from new-technology aircraft never in service before. In 1962, for example, Air France flight 007, a Boeing 707, simply failed to leave the ground during takeoff from Orly airport in Paris. Everyone except two flight attendants was killed and the accident virtually wiped out the entirety of the Atlanta Art Association whose wealthy members were returning from an art tour of Europe.
Both Sony and Ampex had magnetic tape systems for video that were available as early as 1961-1962. They were big and expensive, so most airlines used a film system with 16mm films loaded in a horizontal cassette. When I flew in 1963, it was an actual film projected on a screen at the front of the cabin.
