when travel was glamorous?
 

I'm in the houston airport recovering from patdown by TSA. I got thinking people used to talk about travel being glamorous. Way way before discount airlines and TSA fondling....what was is like?

I know many of you have logged some serious miles in the old days...please educate me!

Our State legislature is about to make the TSA junk grab illegal

Don't know about back in the day, but now it's about as glamorous as a bus ride with a family of hillbillies.

Not that I have anything against hillbillies.

All the men wore suits and ties, the women wore suits with pencil skirts and high heels, or dresses with high heels, and often hats. No security stuff. Go to the observation deck and watch the airplanes take-off and land. When seeing someone off or waiting for their arrival, having dinner at one of the fine restaurants on purpose. People watching. Flying, getting a good meal in coach. Free drinks. A lot of attention from the (all female) attendants. Manners. No pushing, no shoving. There is more, but that is what comes to mind at the moment.

I forgot - plenty of elbow room and leg room in coach, even better in first class.

The Super Constellation was a very nice, even glamorous aircraft, but a little noisy as I recall. I don't know if you would call propellor driven airplanes glamorous or not. Maybe in retrospect.

Show up at the curb half an hour before the flight, flash your ticket and jump on the plane.

Adult size seats.

Two free checked bags.

Free meal.

No stewards... just stewardess's...

$300 flight L.A. to Hawaii... $50 to Las Vegas...

That just in coach.

I'll stop now... getting depressed.

Oh, and your friends and family could meet you at the gate.

PS, I would pay extra for a no TSA flight.

I wish I was of the traveling age back then, I would have loved to have experienced it. The movie "Catch Me if You Can" has a glimpse of what it was like.

It's too bad that Class and decorum isn't in fashion.

My parents made a few flights back in the day. Dad was in uniform, mom had on a dress, high heels, and long gloves. She HATED traveling like that. When we flew to Hawaii in 1958 in the back of an unpressurized Air Force plane we were facing backwards. When we returned to the mainland in 1962 we came by ocean liner, the Matsonia. That was a blast as a kid.

My dad talks about the days of regulated airline travel. He flew commercial on Pan Am from Chicago to LA on a brand new 747 with just 8 passengers. The rules were if the airline scheduled a flight they made the flight. He said it was a great fun flight, the stewardesses brought everyone up to first class, and each passenger had a stewardess. They all played cards and ate lobster & steak and drank champagne.

They were not "flight attendants" back then.

On one return flight from Hawaii on a 747 I flipped up the armrest on four seat, laid down, and slept most of the way.

I'm not old enough for it to ever have been glamorous, but I did make my first flights as a kid in '78, '80, '83, '85. THose were all LONG flights or strings of flights from Florida to northern Japan. I have flown in the back of an AF cargo plane with no insulation (sound or temp) facing backwards. You had to dress warm and they handed out those foam compressible ear plugs. That was only from a base down near Tokyo to our destination/source in northern Japan. I think the flight was a hour or so. I think those trips took about 18-24 hours depending upon the route and lay-overs.

I've also made a ton of flights all over the states and a few to Europe and Mexico. I don't generally have a problem with security. The last time I flew was in Feb, and I didn't get frisked in Houston or FL. My biggest irritation has been upon two occasions where I flew with an item, and then on the return trip, the TSA folks told me I couldn't take it home. I think I told them to just throw it away both times. One other time, in Phoenix, I was told "I recommend you take your shoes off." I asked if I had to take them off and they said "No, but I recommend it." I asked a couple of other ways because it seemed weird. Yeah, I didn't so they did the whole luggage search and search me with the metal detecting wand and chemical wipes thing. It wasn't that big a deal, but if they'd just said "take your shoes off or we have to search you." I'd have been happy to take off my shoes.

So, really, I haven't had any problems flying.

So I'm thinking its because there were primarily two classes back then, the haves and the have nots? Or look at it this way. When the general population gets a hold of something they abuse it. Take cell phones. When they first came out only doctors had them and I always remember seeing doctors and businessmen step outside to talk on it. Now that everyone has a phone, manners are gone. In the same vein, now that everyone can fly, service has drastically gone down and the need for added security is now a reality. Very curious....Does this mean that a society is better (to some degree) with only two classes? :confused:

I remember walking OUTSIDE to get to the plane!

I flew from LA to SF in 1973 to visit my grandparents. While not my first time in a plane, this was my first commercial airline trip.

It may have been because my Mother was Spanish, and I was going to see our/my relatives alone for the first time, but she insisted that I was resplendent in khakis, white shirt, tie and a blue blazer.

So, for the most part, was everyone else.

I did give a gang sign on boarding, however.

go to china, u still gotta do that heh. walk down on the stairs truck into a bus.

Back in the day (late 70's early 80's) I was required to wear jacket and tie when on company business. I was treated with courtesy and I returned it in kind. When we travelled en masse we had an entire area to ourselves and we got our azzes kissed by the stewardesses(who were dressed like models). And everyone minded their manners. Very few people were in T shirts and shorts or raggedy clothes.

I remember back was i was a little kid in the late 60's early 70's whenever we flew, or took a train, my dad always wore a suit and tie, i had to wear a suit. ( even though it was a kids leisure suit.) Mom was always dressed up. I always made a big stink about having to get dressed up. and my parents always saying. "You cant look like a slob when you travel. Thats just the way it is."