Apr 3 2025 - The Golden Age of Airplanes

 

Something that seems signficiantly different now compared to 70 years ago is air travel.  It might have evolved slowly, piece by piece. Take a look at the milestones in air travel history.  The milestones are jet engines going over 300 mph, the Concorde taking its first flight at 1,354 mph, and jumbo jets carrying more people.   What are the passenger's milestones?  We don't see it that way - going faster.   It is more how we feel it.  Squeezed and squashed - narrower seats and denser cabins, with difficult walk spaces.  And with all that squeezing and squashing, dealing with other passengers - some are loud and aggressive, some are loud because they are screaming, crying babies.   Here's a picture of the difference in a Boeing 747.  Those inches difference between the 80s and 2010 seemed to have ruined comfort.  We're going to protest that there's more that has changed.  We're in a closed space with nothing much to do for a few hours, and so eating seems important. There was a meal on a plane back then.  With cutlery that functioned.  There's a picture of 1960s service with the chef servicing and greeting first-class travellers.  There's another picture of passengers in the 1970s being served coffee in china cups.  That article says that flying was such an important occasion that passengers came in their finest clothes.  And there were lounges on board planes.  And then people were smoking in the lounges, so a little low bit there.  Low-fare flights "took off" into the 1990s. I consider that the real milestone for passengers.  Price pressure changed everything. With the lower prices, came huge volumes of people flying, larger airports with huge numbers of gates to walk to. Everything now seems an ordeal when it comes to flying.

This was supposed to be a comparison of meals then and now.  I suggest we in North America should remove the right hand picture.  That seems reserved for Asian airlines. I found a website where people post their airline meals - the site is HERE. You can read the reviews of people saying things like - the pastry was tasty and would have been better if they had heated it up.  As we move past the Asian airlines and into British Airways, the ratings vary all over "the map."  I can't image what they are for U.S. airlines.   Here's a cottage picture from a few years ago.  Now there's something that has changed in 80 years - cottage living.  No more outhouses, water from wells or brought in from the spring, wood-burning fireplaces for heating, no showers.  That trajectory is the opposite of airline travel.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca