Editor’s Note – Monthly Ticket is a CNN Travel series that highlights some of the most fascinating topics in the world of travel. In August, we’ll go back in time to revisit some of the best retro travel experiences.
(CNN) — Cocktail lounges, five-course meals, caviar served with ice sculptures and an endless stream of champagne: life aboard planes was quite different during the “golden age of travel”, the period from 1950 to 1970s that is fondly remembered for its glamor and luxury.
It coincided with the beginning of the jet age, ushered in by aircraft such as the de Havilland Comet, the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8, which were used in the 1950s for the first scheduled transatlantic services, before the introduction of the Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747, in 1970. So what was it like to be there?
“Air travel at that time was something special,” says Graham M. Simons, aviation historian and author. “It was luxurious. It was smooth. It was fast.
“People dressed up for it. The crew was literally wearing haute couture uniforms. And there was a lot more space: the distance between the seats – this is the distance between the seats on the aircraft – probably 36 to 40 inches. 28, as they fill more and more people on board.”
Golden era
The Sunday Roast is made for first class passengers in a BOAC VC10 in 1964. This may interest you : Flight Shutdown, Delay, & Travel Disruption: Summer Travel Nightmare.
Airline: Style at 30,000 feet/Keith Lovegrove
With passenger numbers only a fraction of what they are today and fares too expensive for anyone but the wealthy, airlines weren’t worried about installing more seats, but more amenities.
“Airlines were marketing their flights as luxury modes of transportation, because in the early 1950s they were taking on cruise ships,” adds Simons.
“So there were lounge areas and the possibility of four, five, even six meals. Olympic Airways had gold plated cutlery in the first class cabins.
“Some of the American airlines had fashion shows in the aisle to help passengers pass the time. At one point there was talk of putting grand pianos on the plane to provide entertainment.”
Brands such as Christian Dior, Chanel and Pierre Balmain were working with Air France, Olympic Airways and Singapore Airlines, respectively, to design the crew’s uniforms.
Being a flight attendant – or stewardess, as they were called until the 1970s – was a dream job.
“The flight crews looked like rock stars as they passed through the terminal, carrying their bags, almost in slow motion,” says designer and author of the book “Airline: Style at 30,000 Feet, Keith Lovegrove.” was handsome or handsome.”
Most passengers tried to follow suit.
Relaxed attitude
Pan American World Airways is perhaps the airline most linked to the ‘golden age’. Read also : ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith Explains Why He Left ‘First Take’.
Ivan Dmitri/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
“It was like going to a cocktail party. We had a shirt, tie and jacket, which sounds ridiculous now but was expected at the time,” adds Lovegrove, who began flying in the 1960s as a child with his family, often coming first. class seats, as his father worked in the airline industry.
“When we flew in the jumbo jet, the first thing my brother and I would do was go up the spiral staircase to the upper deck and sit in the cocktail lounge.”
“This is the generation where you would smoke cigarettes on board and get free alcohol.
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but at a young age we were served a schooner of sherry before dinner, then champagne and maybe a digestif afterwards, all under drinking age.
“There was an incredible sense of freedom despite the fact that you were stuck in this fuselage for a few hours.”
According to Lovegrove, this easygoing attitude also extended to security.
“There was very little of that,” he says. “We once flew from the UK to the Middle East with a budgie, a pet bird, which my mother took in a shoebox as hand luggage.
“She made two holes in the top, so the birdie could breathe. When they brought us our three course meal, she took the lettuce out of the shrimp cocktail and put it over the holes. The bird sucked. Security-wise, I don’t think you could get away with it today.”
‘Impeccable service’
A Pan Am flight attendant pours champagne in the first-class cabin of a Boeing 747 jet. On the same subject : Hiring a football LSU: EDGE Jaxon Howard of four stars commits to the Tigers at CBS Sports HQ.
The airline most often associated with the golden age of travel is Pan Am, the first operator of the Boeing 707 and 747 and the industry leader in transoceanic routes at the time.
“My job at Pan Am was an adventure from the day I started,” says Joan Policastro, a former flight attendant who worked at the airline from 1968 until its dissolution in 1991.
“There was no comparison between flying for Pan Am and any other airline. Everyone admired it.
“The food was spectacular and the service impeccable. We had ice swans in first class to serve the caviar, and Maxim’s of Paris [a renowned French restaurant] served our food.
Policastro recalls how passengers arrived at a lounge across from first class “to sit and chat” after meal service.
“Often, that’s where we used to sit, talking to our passengers. Today, passengers don’t even pay attention to who’s on the plane, but back then it was a much more social and polite experience,” says Policastro, who worked as a flight attendant. on board at Delta before retiring in 2019.
Suzy Smith, who has also been a flight attendant on Pan Am since 1967, also remembers sharing moments with passengers in the lounge, including celebrities such as actors Vincent Price and Raquel Welch, anchor Walter Cronkite and Princess Grace of Monaco.
Luxurious world
Travelers are served a buffet aboard a Lockheed Super Constellation as they fly with the former American airline Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 1955.
The upstairs lounge of the Boeing 747 was eventually replaced by a dining room.
“We laid out the tables with tablecloths. It was fabulous,” says Smith. “People couldn’t sit up there to take off and land, but they went up to dinner. After a while, they also took out the dining room and put first-class seats upstairs.”
First class service was worthy of a restaurant.
“We started with canapés, then left with an appetizer cart, which included beluga caviar and foie gras,” he explains. “After that, we took a cart with a big salad bowl and mixed it before serving.
“So there was always some kind of roast, like a chateaubriand or rack of lamb or roast beef, and it came on the plane raw and we cooked it in the kitchen.
“We took it from another cart and carved it in the aisle. But in addition we had at least five other entrees, a cheese and fruit cart and a dessert cart. And we served Crystal champagne or Dom Perignon.”
Things weren’t so bad in the economy either.
“Food came on the plane in aluminum pans and we cooked and served everything,” says Smith. “The trays were big and came with real glasses.
“If we had a flight for breakfast, they would board raw eggs and we would have to crack them in a silver terrine and whip them, melt the butter and cook them with the sausage or whatever else we had.”
In addition to dressing neatly, passengers also didn’t have much carry-on luggage.
“When I started, there were no wheels in a suitcase,” adds Smith. “We always checked them in and then carried a bag on board.
“There were also no overhead compartments. The only things you could put in there were coats and hats. People only brought one piece of luggage, which fit under the seat.”
It wasn’t all perfect. Smoking was permitted on board, filling cabins to the chagrin of flight attendants; was progressively banned from the 1980s onwards.
Fondly remembered
A first class ‘Slumberette’ in a Lockheed Constellation, early 1950s.
Airline: Style at 30,000 feet/Keith Lovegrove
Many airlines had strict physical requirements for hiring flight attendants, who had to maintain a slim figure or risk being fired.
Safety was nowhere near as good as it is today: in the US, for example, there were 5,196 total accidents in 1965 compared to 1,220 in 2019, and the fatality rate was 6.15 per 100,000 flight hours compared to 1 .9, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Kidnappings were common: there were over 50 in 1969 alone. Rates were also much higher. According to Simons, a transatlantic airfare in the early 1960s would have cost about $600, which is about $5,800 in today’s dollars.
However, nostalgia for the period abounds, and Pan Am, in particular, is still fondly remembered as the pinnacle of the air travel experience.
The airline went bankrupt in 1991, when the golden age was long dead, after deregulation paved the way for less glamorous but more affordable commercial aviation starting in the 1980s.
It survives through organizations that unite former employees of the company, such as World Wings, a philanthropic association of former Pan Am flight attendants, to which Smith and Policastro belong.
“Pan Am was a great cut above the rest. We’ve always had very stylish uniforms. They didn’t try to present us as sex objects. And the work was very difficult, but we were treated like royalty,” says Smith.
“We had a wonderful time at every stop. We had so many adventures.”
