# Did the golden age of flying actually suck? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 25, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038 "2019-06-25T15:35:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/61 "2019-06-27T03:46:54Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Yes it sucked. It sucked because I couldn’t afford to fly back then. Between 1970 and 1980 I flew a total of six times. Nowadays I fly routinely. Six flights wasprobably four flights more than the median in that decade. Even today, with flying being vastly cheaper and many more people flying, a huge percentage of people do not fly, ever, and the median number of flights taken by a person every year is no more than one or two. The MEAN number of flights a year taken by an American is three. However, that’s driven up by a small number of very frequent fliers. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/62 "2019-06-27T14:14:08Z")
My first flight was 1940 on a DC3. They weighed the passengers and luggage and told you where to sit in order to adjust the CG. You got free chewing gum to keep your ears from popping on take off. My first jet flight was in the mid-60s. It was the Dallas - San Francisco leg of a flight from Huntsville AL. There were only half a dozen passengers on board. You ordered meals from a Trader Vic menu. In first class you got a book of matches with your name printed on it and if you were late they paged you in the airport. Oh yeah, the Dallas terminal was empty. It echoed when you walked. Watching the landforms of the US from airliner altitude is more interesting than the current drivel on the video. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/63 "2019-06-27T14:44:59Z")
From a UK perspective, things changed with the advent of pack-em-in charter flights for cheap package holidays to the Mediterranean in the early 60s. Before then it was definitely something for the well-heeled, if not entirely luxurious, though often imagined as such (I seem to remember some daft romcom movie from the 30s where a couple on a flight went out on to a promenade deck, and I don’t think it was meant to be an airship). Before WW2, there were flights across the Empire, since it could be done in shortish hops, and treated rather like a cruise, with a bit of time on the ground in various exotic places. After the war the government pushed ahead with trying to get a pole position in what was expected to be a golden age of flying, hedging their bets by backing a fast jet (the Comet, which was great until they learnt the hard way about metal fatigue), a superlarge luxury propeller plane for the Atlantic and other long-distance routes (the Brabazon, which was dropped as too large and expensive) and the Princess flying boat (also for luxury), which ended up mothballed, but still visible in the1950s. In the end, only the revised Comet was a success - speed won out over slow luxury. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/64 "2019-06-27T15:33:56Z")
With respect to the meals there are several reasons why the food quite often is less than satisfactory. The [Time](https://time.com/4862996/airplane-food-taste-bad/) article sums it up, but feeding anyone a superb meal inflight is a real challenge. Factor in the fact that planes today also carry a lot more passengers and the problem is compounded. Feeding 20 people in KLM Royal class (sadly no more) a gourmet feast is going to be less of a feat than feeding 300 people in Economy seating where not only do you have less money per seat to feed them but you also have many varying tastes. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/65 "2019-06-27T16:00:33Z")
It’s also a challenge to prepare menus that will taste like passengers expect them to at 8000-foot cabin altitudes. It’s easy to just dispense with food service entirely, though. Pity that stand-up comics can’t talk about airline food anymore, though - they’re stuck with Relationships and Life in NY/LA. ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/66 "2019-06-27T18:18:20Z")
One thing I’ve noticed for a few years now, is that I am seemingly unable to carry on a conversation with a seat mate. It’s like our faces are just too damn close and you’re almost swapping spit to chat. I miss carrying on a casual flirtation with members of the opposite sex while flying ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/67 "2019-06-28T01:40:36Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Did most of my work air travel in the 80s-90s. Sure was nice to be able to get to the airport 15 minutes before boarding - or if pressed - whenever would give you enough time to pull an “OJ” and race to the gate before the door closed. 😃 Yeah…“pulling an OJ” came to mean something very different in the 90s.:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2019, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/68 "2019-07-02T01:07:04Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > And, I understand they weren’t as stingy on the drink service. Depends. In the U.S. the only change I can remember is when the airlines (or the government) figured out that alcohol carried a lot more kick in the air than on the ground, and the two-drink limit was imposed. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2019, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/69 "2019-07-02T01:38:06Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > 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. This. The last time I thought flying was exciting and fun was the 1970’s. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2019, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038/70 "2019-07-02T01:46:03Z")
> [@JeffB](#): > > Are there shorts that cover armpits? If you pull them up far enough. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-golden-age-of-flying-actually-suck/836038.md?page=3)