Hello!
I had an awesome chat with Cathay Pacific pilot today. He was reminiscing about the glory days and telling me these great stories especially when the B747 became to be.
Back in the days people dressed up formal for air travel, pilots were celebrities. It was a luxury. That is obviously all gone.

What events happend that caused air travel to loose its lustre? What year did things start to change? As air travel became more affordable, did airlines no longer have formal dress codes? Were there specific airlines that started a new trend? It is amazing how things used to be vs today.

My guess is that more people became able to fly and after deregulation airlines realized that there was more money to be made by making flying a bit more affordable. They were right and among the things to change, people stopped having to wear a suit to fly, a change I actually think was a good one.

Wasn't too glorious in 1968 when I sat in the back of a stretched DC-8 from HNL to SFO. The noise level was the worst I've ever experienced as a pax in an airliner, and I had to cope (I was a nonsmoker) with the the constant smog drifting forward from just behind me. Read this for a alternate view on the "Glory Days":

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/opinion/sunday/there-was-no-golden-age-of-air-travel.html

I would say in some ways today is the glory days. It is just that the glory is in business and first class. Showers, full suites, lie flat seats and more. The old days didn't compare to the product offered today in first and business class.

I just simply don't understand the "glory days" argument. Were the glory days when the planes smelled of smoke? Were the glory days when seeing the world and learning about different cultures were out of reach of the majority of people? Or are the glory days today, when we can affordably see the world with options ranging from ULCC carriers to (practically) hotels in the sky able to connect cities worlds apart in a matter of hours?

I'll take today.

The glory days for me were the days pre LCC mentality in the mid late 90s post the inflight smoking ban but before the penny pinching and additional security kicked in. When full service was still full service even shorthaul,

RetiredWeasel wrote:

Wasn't too glorious in 1968 when I sat in the back of a stretched DC-8 from HNL to SFO. The noise level was the worst I've ever experienced as a pax in an airliner, and I had to cope (I was a nonsmoker) with the the constant smog drifting forward from just behind me. Read this for a alternate view on the "Glory Days":

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/opinion/sunday/there-was-no-golden-age-of-air-travel.html

Great article! Thank you for sharing. Great to see a different perspective!

sw733 wrote:

I just simply don't understand the "glory days" argument. Were the glory days when the planes smelled of smoke? Were the glory days when seeing the world and learning about different cultures were out of reach of the majority of people? Or are the glory days today, when we can affordably see the world with options ranging from ULCC carriers to (practically) hotels in the sky able to connect cities worlds apart in a matter of hours?

I'll take today.

Those are great points and arguments.

I guess the glory days are more of seeing the development of the jet age. The B747 was a marvel.

35 years old. Not old. Not a kid.

Just judging on my lifetime...if you think today's era is the "glory days" era, you are absolutely, 100% delusional.

Flying today is an absolute miserable experience:

1. TSA
2. Full flights
3. TSA
4. Paying for bags
5. TSA
6. No food
7. TSA
8. Thin seats
9. TSA
10. No legroom
11. TSA
12. Excessive carry on luggage
13. TSA
14. BOB
15. TSA

I dont have perspective of the 60s, but compared to the 80s and 90s, flying today sucks

To me the glory days would be when one could cross the Atlantic in three and a bit hours. Only did it once but now I'm NYC based and have all my family in the UK I'd certainly avail myself of the supersonic option more regularly.

As someone in my early 30s I can only recall my flying from about 1990 onwards. Luckily as the vast majority of my travels are premium cabin things have only improved, not only in the air but on the ground too. The international First Class of the early 1990s is closer to the premium economy of today and the first time I ended up with a fully flat bed seemed really cool! The soft product has declined somewhat though...

jfklganyc wrote:

35 years old. Not old. Not a kid.

Just judging on my lifetime...if you think today's era is the "glory days" era, you are absolutely, 100% delusional.

....

I dont have perspective of the 60s, but compared to the 80s and 90s, flying today sucks

I'm not delusional. Last year I flew from Australia to Singapore and back for less than $200. Literally flew there for dinner and a bit of shopping, spent a day with friends and got back for less than what I'd usually spend on myself for dinner at a high end restaurant. That is something unthinkable in the 80s and 90s.

Flights in business class have certainly got more comfortable since the 90s, and they've gotten wayyy cheaper. Economy has certainly gotten cheaper, and quality has largely improved I'd say - though if you're American, maybe not. We still get full cans of coke (or beer) on short haul domestic flights here.

And only America has to deal with the TSA! I can keep my shoes on when I walk through security, and even bring a water bottle!

My uncle used to work for Western airlines in avionics repair.
He told me a story about the early days of Western flying LAX-Hawaii. At the time Western as other airlines actually used a sextant to navigate, there was a small glass dome in the cockpit to sight on the sun or stars (Boeing 720B and/or 707). They would fly via dead reckoning towards HNL and then wait to pick up a radio signal (I assume VOR) from Hawaii. They confirmed their locations with the sextant (flight engineer's job).

He said that when the 747s of other airlines started flying LAX-HNL (Western did not have the 747), those planes were equipped with the new modern INS systems. He said that they were so accurate that they would program in the destination and the plane would arrive within 2-3 miles of HNL via autopilot. I was amazed at that level of accuracy over 2500 or so miles. Of course he told me this story perhaps in the 1980's so well before GPS. Nowadays that wouldn't be very amazing at all.

He told me that the Western pilots told him that if they happened to take off from LAX behind a 747 that was also going to HNL, they could just follow the vapor trail of the jumbo and they'd be right on top of HNL without any navigational challenges!

Chemist wrote:

My uncle used to work for Western airlines in avionics repair.
He told me a story about the early days of Western flying LAX-Hawaii. At the time Western as other airlines actually used a sextant to navigate, there was a small glass dome in the cockpit to sight on the sun or stars (Boeing 720B and/or 707.....

Great story! The B747 was filled with so much technology. Very advanced for its time. Amazing.

Has anybody read: "747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation."
It's written by Joe Sutter (he was an engineer and the head manager of the B747 design team).

A fantastic read filled with stories and not super technical.

So much for the glory days:

You make it sound like cheaper flights and convenience is a bad thing in the aviation world

Are we talking service or safety?

OP seems to be talking about service.

Two different things

claytonyu wrote:

You make it sound like cheaper flights and convenience is a bad thing in the aviation world

This is A.net...affordability, safety and frequency don't mean anything compared to a beat up old 747SP.

As others have mentioned, I guess my thoughts on this get broken down to premium travel or economy travel. Premium travel has only gotten better and better in my experience. A lie flat seat coupled with lots of entertainment options (both airline and self provided, plus wifi) can often be as good if not better than lounging on my own couch at home. Hell, on the plane FA's will bring me a drink - if I asked my wife for a beer while on the couch, I'd be a dead man!

TSA pre-check has actually worked exceedingly well for me, and they've done a good job adjusting the program as need be (at one point they were simply giving doing one offs for non-members, and the lines got long to the point where people complained, and they actually listened at knocked off that practice). For the relatively low cost, I find it to be well worth it.

I also think airlines have really upped their game for their most valued fliers - I've found UA's Global Services to be a fantastic program that makes travel every few days or so much more bearable. If you have to be away from family as much as some of us do, it's a nice thing to least have someone looking out for you when things go pear shaped.

And maybe thats why where we are today: Economy is indeed bare bones and less confortable than it was in the past, but that is a function of customers voting with their wallets. And even then, it isn't THAT much worse. Being able to have access to wifi, personal device entertainment, etc etc is miles ahead of watching whatever one movie the airline decided to show on the big screen on a DC-10 while listening through pneumatic headphones.

For the majority of the population that flies only a handful of times a year, the price points are wonderful compared to what they once were. Taking a family of four or five on a trip is now much much more affordable than it once was, and I'd take that over a few hours of marginal creature comforts of "old economy" any day.

For me, I really like to pay attention to the here and now, because in ten and twenty years time it'll be different again and I really want to remember what it was like, and also have things like enough photos and even A.net trip reports to remember it by. For example, I fly on the 717 a lot, and this will become a thing of the past in the next decade, or more likely the one following that. I want to try and soak up the experience now. I think this comes from the pace of change in airline travel since (I put it at around) 2000 - and also overnight events like 9/11 where 'glory days' things were ..just over.

I definitely agree with the smoking on aircraft thing as being one of the best things left behind in 'those days'. Safety would be another, and the noise factor another as well. The things I would like back (just reminiscing) are the catering, hot meals in Y domestic; the lack of security and check in closing times; and the higher behavioural standard of pax.