English Version | Those were the days

There was a time when, during a New York—Paris flight, passengers were invited to socialize in lounges where they drank champagne and played chess. At that time, all airplanes were smoke friendly and the distance between seats, even in economy class, was ridiculously large. It was the so-called “golden age of travel”, the period between the 1950s and the 1970s remembered for comfort, luxury and glamour. Any resemblance to today's reality is pure coincidence.

“It was luxurious. It was smooth. It was fast. Air travel at that time was something special. People dressed up because of it. The staff was literally wearing haute couture uniforms. And there was much more space: seat pitch – that’s the distance between the seats on the aircraft – was probably 36 to 40 inches. Now it’s down to 28, as they cram more and more people on board. There were lounge areas, and the possibility of four, five, even six course meals. Olympic Airways had gold-plated cutlery in the first-class cabins. The airlines were marketing their flights as luxurious means of transport, because in the early 1950s they were up against the cruise liners. Some of the American airlines had fashion shows down the aisle, to help the passengers pass the time. At one stage, there was talk of putting baby grand pianos on the aircraft to provide entertainment.” It sounds like a lie, but it's not. The account is by Graham M. Simons, aviation historian and author of numerous books on the subject. In August 2022, he collaborated with CNN on an extensive article about the “golden age of travel”, in which he recalled the period between the 1950s and 1970s that coincided with the cultural changes brought about by the introduction of jet aircraft - planes departing from North America and crossing the Atlantic Ocean could finally fly to their destinations non-stop, making much of the world accessible for the first time in a single day's travel. Of course, at the time, not everyone was able to fly. Fares were too expensive, so the airlines were not concerned with installing more seats, but rather with improving their services. The happy few who could afford a ticket would be treated like kings. Even if they traveled in economy class.

Fast forward to 2023, when buying a plane trip is just a click away. There are promotions that unite European capitals for less than twenty Euros — under what conditions, we don't really know, what matters is to go, as long as you don't take too much luggage. Or none at all, just in case. There are more than five thousand airlines operating worldwide, which helps to understand the schizophrenia that civil aviation has become. Airports are overcrowded, there is a constant coming and going of passengers in every place on the globe, even the most remote, because no one wants to go through the “shame” of staying at home when “everything is so cheap, it's a shame not to go.” Of course, the upheaval that currently surrounds air travel is impossible to compare with the calm and quiet of other times. The infernal logistics that we are forced to go through before we are actually seated on an airplane would make our ancestors' hair stand on end. They, who were used to wearing their best clothes to travel (crazy, right?), for whom a transatlantic flight was synonymous with twelve hours of fun, lots of whiskey, and a huge cloud of smoke (cigarettes apparently did not kill anyone yet), would be horrified by the rows of people who look bored, almost numb, going through endless security checks where they are forced to undress and show the contents of their luggage; they would not endure the screams of children who, starving, endure four and five hours of delays (a constant); they would be afraid of the women and men who lose their patience when asked to send their cabin bag to the hold without warning because “there is no room on the plane after all”; they would look down at the tourists in swim trunks and beach sandals who wander around the terminal with their hands in their pockets, with the placidity of a newborn baby; they would be surprised to find that there are no four-course meals — on most routes, there are no meals, period. 

The boom in low-cost airlines has caused such a paradigm shift that nowadays less is really less: in order to become competitive, the companies have cut back on almost everything, from the space between seats to the number of bags each person can take (a ticket is just that, a ticket, everything else is extra), to the food, which is no longer served unless you travel in business class. There is no coffee. There is no bread and butter. There is no water. In the last two decades, especially after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, flying has become a (small) nightmare. It is safer. It's faster. It is more hygienic (if you think that cigarette smoke is now gone). But the process of making it happen is ghastly. It is a kind of growing annoyance, a never-ending misfortune, an Ipobrufen-proof headache. Unless you have a private plane, of course. The problem is people, then. As Patrick Smith, a pilot, wrote in an opinion piece published in May 2017 in The New York Times “one of the reasons why aviation has become such a chaos is that many people now have the means to participate in it. It hasn't always been this way. Adjusted for inflation, the average cost of a ticket has decreased by about 50% over the last 35 years. This is not true in every market, but overall, fares are much cheaper than they were 30 years ago. (And yes, this is after considering all the additional fees that airlines love and passengers despise so much).”

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, only a small portion of the population traveled. This small minority experienced the best of the best: meals were served as in any premium restaurant, with tablecloths and china plates; the menus included delicacies such as foie-gras, caviar, chateaubriand or roast beef; for breakfast, the hostesses made scrambled eggs, one of the dishes most requested by passengers; champagne was unlimited. This almost perfect universe was only shaken by the number of accidents — much higher than nowadays, as well as hijackings, which were recurrent, especially in the 1970s. The development of technology has enabled many improvements in safety, with the result that the number of fatal accidents is now almost non-existent. Hand in hand with the smoking ban, which closed the “laissez faire, laissez passer” chapter of commercial aviation for good, we have gone from a “golden era of travel” to an “easy era of travel.”

The airline most often associated with this golden age is the American Pan Am, the first to operate the Boeing 707 and 747 and the industry leader on transoceanic routes at the time. Joan Policastro, a former flight attendant with the company between 1968 and 1991, recalls those years with nostalgia: “My job with Pan Am was an adventure from the very day I started”, she told CNN. Indeed, her profession was one of the most coveted in those decades. Carol Brown is now 76 years old. Between 1969 and 1975 she was part of the exclusive Pan Am crew, and she told Condé Nast Traveler what it was like. "There was a pride in being part of Pan Am in the golden age. We were not just employees, we were part of a team of the most experienced airline in the world. The whole world knew Pan Am and the 'blue ball.' We would pass on the street or in the terminal and people would turn around." In fact, working on Pan Am was as cool as being on a Hollywood movie poster. "Flight crews looked like rock stars when they walked through the terminal, carrying their bags, almost in slow motion”, says Keith Lovegrove, author of the book Airline: Style at 30,000 Feet. “They were very stylish, and everybody was either handsome or beautiful.” From Catch Me If You Can (2002), with Leonardo DiCaprio, inspired by the true story of the swindler Frank Abagnale Jr., who called Pan Am the “Ritz-Carlton of airlines”, to the homonymous Pan Am series (2011), there are several works that glorify a time that is no more. A time characterized by a relaxed attitude (often “details” such as identification documents were ignored, something unthinkable nowadays) and impeccable service (each passenger was treated as the most important person on the flight). It would be interesting to recreate one of those moments on an upcoming trip. Let's imagine the following scenario: we are sitting in our seat, in the middle of a Lisbon—London flight, and we call the flight attendant: “May I see the menu?” He brings us a brochure containing the inflight shopping products. In the middle there is a custard tart, an orange juice, a coffee, each one more expensive than the other. “Excuse me. I was talking about the lunch menu.” He looks at us, surprised. “We don't serve meals on board. Only in first class.” We peek into first class. No one is devouring five courses. There are no champagne flutes. There is no foie-gras. We watched a steamed chicken being handed to the lady with sunglasses sitting in the first row. Times are different.

Translated from the original on our The Voyage Issue, from June 2023.Full credits and stories on the print version.