Now that more people are allowed to fly again, I want to share a personal story. You're going to think I'm making this up, but I'm not. Compare my flight on a commercial airliner to any you've ever been on.
It's 1969. I've lived in the San Fernando Valley my entire life but always wanted to go back east, New York in particular. So I saved my money and hit the road.
The plan was this: Three weeks. First week in Gotham. Then meet-up with one of my radio freak buddies and drive with him to his home in Pittsburgh. Spend a day or so soaking in the wonders of the Steel City and then fly to D.C. See those sights and stop off in Louisville to visit my cousin on the way home. I had introduced him to the Sunset Strip a couple of years ago. He could return the favor and show me where they filmed some scenes from Goldfinger.
The airlines were all regulated back then; all required to charge the same fares. The carriers all cried that they couldn’t make money this way so in the ‘80s the government relented and dropped pricing regulations. Within months several long established airlines went bankrupt.
But in 1969 fares were standard. And all the airlines had a great deal for students. You could fly for half price. And you could get huge discounts on hotel rooms if you were a student. So for maybe a couple hundred bucks I booked all my flights and reserved a room in New York at the prestigious Statler Hilton across the street from Madison Square Garden for $9.50 a night.
My how traveling has changed. I checked in my suitcase (for free) and my family escorted me right to the gate. People dressed nice to fly on airplanes. You didn’t see one “SHIT HAPPENS” t-shirt.
I flew TWA. This was one of the major carriers, equivalent to United or American – now dead (yeah, deregulation was a GREAT idea). Once in the air they distributed free headsets so we could listen to seven channels of music. Moments later, carts were wheeled down the aisles and we were all served a hot breakfast – omelets or French toast. And the utensils were genuine metal! Then a big screen was lowered and they showed a free movie (Support Your Local Sheriff with James Garner). But that was nothing. Here’s the kicker: I’ve never seen this on any other flight I’ve ever taken – they set up a big brunch buffet. We all lined up down the aisle and helped ourselves to lox, bagels, cold cuts, and fruit and various salads.
And this was coach!
The guys in First Class must’ve been getting blowjobs.
Landed at JFK around 4:00 and taxied into the city, getting my first look at that Manhattan skyline. Wow! The Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies didn’t do it justice. I was Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy – a wide-eyed rube taking in the “big city” for the first time. This was a world unlike any I had ever witnessed. Just the sheer number of WIGS stores was staggering to me. How many New Yorkers need wigs?
Was deposited at my hotel, a grand old structure of stature and grace, and then shown to my elegant $9.50 a night room. It was the size of litter box. There was one single bed, a window that looked out at the back of the Gimbels’ Department Store neon flashing sign, and a TV that was so old it said “the Dumont Network” above channel 5. But I didn’t care. I was really in New York. I turned on my transistor radio and there was Dan Ingram on WABC trashing some sponsor’s frozen clam dip.
I just walked around that first night. Saw the Empire State Building, Macy’s, seventeen WIGS stores. I had dinner at Howard Johnson’s. I didn’t feel self-conscious that I was eating alone because everyone there was eating alone.
After dinner I wandered into Madison Square Garden. There was a Billy Graham Crusade that week. Billy Graham was a charismatic TV evangelist who rose to great prominence with lavish stage extravaganzas… I mean, religious services. But admission was free (donation cups were passed around like joints) so I checked it out. I didn’t find God but I did see where the Knicks and Rangers played.
Sadly, we mostly vacationed in the Northwest and California during that time. I really didn't start flying on planes until I met my wife. By then, those perks were gone.
ReplyDeleteI flew a couple of times in the pre-deregulation 70's and yes, the airlines competed on service. Whenever my parents visited Vegas, they always flew Western Airlines which offered free champagne. Of course I didn't go on those trips- Vegas was no place for a child.
ReplyDeleteYou can blame airline deregulation on California in part, specifically PSA Airlines. Intra-state routes were not regulated- so PSA offered a $10 one way fare between LA and SF for certain flights in the late 60's-early 70's. The fare proved popular, PSA filled seats and made money, and the industry and government took notice.
This reminds me of my first trip to NYC when I was about 20 and attended the New Music Conference. The very first morning, I left my hotel and the first thing I saw was a granny-type elderly lady screaming profanity and giving the finger to a cab driver who came too close to her in the crosswalk. I said to myself, "I'm not in Texas anymore."
ReplyDeleteI haven't been on a plane in a while, so I don't know if they still have in-flight audio entertainment, but I'll bet I'm the only person you know who ever had the job of creating it. When I was record librarian and production coordinator for TM Programming and Productions, I had to find all the records to produce the in-flight entertainment for 40 international airlines. The job required someone who knows every type of record from current and oldies rock/country/soul to Japanese pop to opera to comedy to European easy listening. It was a good job: I got all the promo records I could eat, got to listen to music all day, and could spend my free time looking at Fausto Papetti album covers. Google Images of "Fausto Papetti album covers" with "safe search" off and you'll see what I mean.
You went to a Billy Graham crusade?! C'mon, you have to tell us more than that. Give us a complete review.
ReplyDeleteA TWA story.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents were flying back east to see family in the early 1970s. My mother booked the flights at the TWA desk at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. They asked if she had any special dietary requests for the meal. She thanked them and asked for nothing spicy or sugary--Grandma was diabetic and Grandpa had an ulcer. Great! My mother didn't tell them--she wanted them to be pleasantly surprised.
When they arrived and called home, she asked about the meal. What meal, they said. They were served tamales and lemon sugar cake. Well. My mother went to the desk at the Sahara. Not that she was loud, but security came from the other side of the hotel to see what the problem was.
A week later, my grandparents are on the plane to fly home and the flight is delayed a little. Why? No one knows. Suddenly, as they look out the window, a car pulls up. A guy gets out, opens the back door, and pulls out two trays. He carries them onto the plane. Their meals.
TWA got the message.
Your story seemed rather anticlimactic. I was expecting you would tell us of some nightmare scenario like in "The Out-of-Towners." (The original. Not the awful remake.) Or maybe you experienced an instance similar to something on "Law & Order" where you were mugged by a Times Square, transvestite hooker outside of a peep show. At least you could have told us that you stepped in a pile of human waste.
ReplyDeleteOr you realize it was just a dream. You wake up aboard that restaurant that you told us about in a previous blog. The one that recreated the retro, in flight dining experience.
But I suppose that one of the good things about your flight was that in 1969 the "flight attendants" were all still female stewardesses in short skirts and high heels. Oops! Back to Times Square again.
Up Up and Away...TWA
M.B.
What I remember about airline food in the 80s was wrapping on each component of the meal, including utensils and condiments. I figured the point was less to to feed you than to keep you busy. Once in that decade I flew to DC to visit relatives. I wore suit and tie. By coincidence my boss was on the same flight -- up in first class -- wearing sweatshirt and jeans.
ReplyDeleteBefore that, I remember airlines used to give out little pilot wings to kids. Still have the plastic SAS version.
These days my travel fantasies center on rail. You don't get club cars like in "The Palm Beach Story" or plush compartments like in "Murder on the Orient Express" or Eva Marie Saint like in "North by Northwest". But you do get bigger seats and windows, and the Amtrak roomette is luxury enough if you just want to stretch out in private.
One more memory: A shop at SFO, full of the usual magazines, travel-sized sundries and so on. There was a display of cheesy toys / souvenirs under a sign reading "WHAT DID YOU BRING ME, DADDY?"
My first plane flight was in the early 80s to Florida [Delta, if I'm remembering right]. Crew was cordial and all passengers were well behaved. No in flight dinner but they were pushing a cart down the aisle with BOOZE and stopping and asking everyone what they'd like to drink. They get to me and asked if I liked a Coke or Pepsi. I said I'd like a Rum AND Coke. She goes "Sorry, you have to be 21 to order liquor." I give her the stink eye and said "I am 24." Since my ID was in the overhead bin I couldn't prove it and all I got was a Coke. After the flight, mad a point to track her down and showed her my ID. She just smirked and said "Sorry, You looked like your're 16 years old."
ReplyDeleteCue 35+ years later, again on a flight to Florida, this time on Spirit airlines. I guess they must have taken a cue from the movie "Honey, I shrunk The Kids" because the plane was like being on the inside of a toilet paper tube with seats the Smurfs would have bitched about being "too small". 180 degrees different experience than Delta. Passengers yelling, getting up switching seats, People that apparently had never heard of showers, bathtubs or deodorant, some lady that must have been on her way to a farting contest and decided she'd practice her "art" on the plane. Idiots refusing to turn off their phones, tablets, computers as instructed. Crew was trying to be nice but they were getting surly. A flight attendant that must have come from a call center somewhere and had been fired because no on could understand him. His safety instructions sounded like he was saying "As you plummet to your death, make sure you are blowing a gopher on the way down and pull on a female passengers chest area to inflate her silicone boobies so you can float a few minutes longer before drowning." And all I could think of is "Now I know how cows feel on the way to a slaughterhouse."
I really wish I had been able to experience the golden age of air travel. But I was a teenager when deregulation of the airlines happened. My father did a lot of traveling when he was in the Air Force but we never traveled very far as a family. If we couldn't get somewhere by driving, we didn't go there.
ReplyDeleteI do remember the day that the deregulation was signed into law. I remember it because it was reported on the network news on radio, and my grandfather said that it would be a very bad thing for airlines and air travel.
I grew up in Manhattan. Everything mentioned here seemed well within the city limits of Normal. I guess it's whatever you're used to.
ReplyDeleteI used to enjoy flying, but it isn't the staggering fares which killed it, it is the air craft where they made the seats smaller to crowd more into the plane. The only times in the last ten years where I enjoyed flying is when I was able to fly first class (for a thousand dollars more than coach). In the 1970s coach was fine. Continental airlines even had a plane which had an observation deck on top and during the flight if you wanted to you could relocate up there for the rest of the flight.
ReplyDeleteI had to do transcontinental business trips in the 80s. After a couple of times going straight from work in my suit, I wised up and changed into comfortable clothes in an airport restroom. Such relief. And these days, as small as the space allotted to each coach passenger is, I'd sooner fly taped to the outside of the plane than I would wear business attire.
ReplyDeleteThis is the second time today I have seen the Statler Hilton mentioned. The first was in reference to its original name: the Hotel Pennsylvania, home to the Cafe Rouge and NBC Red broadcasts (pre 1942). Famed in song, and apparently the oldest phone number in use in NYC. Current fate of the phone number is unknown as there are plans to tear the building down: https://www.curbed.com/2021/04/so-long-to-the-hotel-pennsylvania.html
ReplyDeleteI went to New York in 1966 on a student Fare to hang out with some friends. $22.00 for a one-way student fare. The good old days.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the BLS inflation calculator, 22.00 on 1966 would be 183.25 today. It's all relative.
DeleteGod, I hate flying. I was reading a book, dropped it on the floor, and couldn't reach it until I got to my destination. This, BTW, was NYC to San Diego.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I do like, though, is that there's no smoking. I was once in Row 24. Row 25 started the smoking section. The dumb smoke didn't know to stay in its section.
Diane KH, you can make it 3 posts, as Mark Evanier also mentioned it in his blog post on Friday. The hotel was home to some early NYC Comic Conventions.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story! I was a recent college grad and working in Pittsburgh radio when I first flew to NYC. It was a one-day trip with a friend, and the first of many visits over the years. One time, a few days before Christmas, I was walking through the old F.A.O. Schwarz by Central Park and ran into David Faustino from "Married With Children. A short time later I was standing in a checkout like and Steve Landesberg was behind me. We chatted while we waited and he was a nice guy. In New York, you never know whom you might see.
ReplyDeleteI remember when it was the Statler and I stayed there in the late 90s when it was the Penn. My God, what a dump it was. It's been renovated since but still...
ReplyDeleteMy first flight was at age 18 in 1980. Tulane (New Orleans) freshman going home for Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteI wore a suit, but was the ONLY PERSON on the Delta jet. They flew the plane with one passenger. If I weren't a gay male, I'd have been thrilled to have all of those female flight attendants to myself.
Drinking was legal at 18 in 1980, so I enjoyed a LOT of attention and drinks.
In 1973, we flew a 747 from Chicago to Miami (they must have figured, we've got these damn planes, lets fly them somewhere). Lunch in coach was hot roast beef served on china with silverware. A flight attendant gave some of us a tour of the plane, including the upstairs piano bar (which was not currently in use), which in my memory was wallpapered and carpeted in red shag with a white piano. Swingin' stuff for an unworldly 15-year-old.....
ReplyDeleteExcerpted from:
ReplyDeleteAirline Deregulation
By Fred L. Smith, Jr. and Braden Cox
"The economic liberalization of air travel was part of a series of “deregulation” moves based on the growing realization that a politically controlled economy served no continuing public interest. U.S. deregulation has been part of a greater global airline liberalization trend, especially in Asia, Latin America, and the European Union...
Even the partial freeing of the air travel sector has had overwhelmingly positive results. Air travel has dramatically increased and prices have fallen."
The next time I board a flight and realize I'm paying almost as much for the carry-on bag to fly, as I did for airfare, I shall remember these words.
Hello, Necco! My wife and I got the "we're the only two folks not being paid by the airline" treatment back in the early 00's. The flight staff sat down and talked to us much of the way from Chicago to Atlanta. It was a great flight, seeing that our Friends and Family pass from Delta essentially stranded us in Detroit for a day. Got there for free, $500 to come home.
ReplyDeleteOn April 21, 1982, I returned to my office at Young & Rubicam after two days off for the start of Passover ... when I was informed that in 45 minutes, I would need to be at LGA for a flight to Dallas, to personally present the folks at Dr. Pepper with tape reel. Right at DFW. I got on that plane, and realized that I probably would not be eating until I got home, whenever that was, because there was no Kosher For Passover food on board. A flight attendant heard my plight ... and somehow, I ended up with the Captain's fruit cup. (They did manage to find me an actual dinner for the flight home, four hours later.)
ReplyDeleteMy first time on a plane was in 1955. I was 8. We flew from Chicago to Miami. I have real memory of what we got to eat. The flight was on a prop. I am pretty sure there were no jets flying at the time. I flew from Milwaukee to Detroit a few times, but the flight was so short all you got was a coke and peanuts. By then it was jet travel. I flew to New York as well in 1969. We stayed with our room mate in Younkers. I don't remember getting anything great on the flight.
ReplyDeleteGoing to have to buy the book. God, I remember airline headphones as a souvenir.
ReplyDelete