Originally Posted by
vaguba
You also have to keep in mind that Korea was a poverty stricken country for much of the early 1980s, so what you see on KAL isn't representative of an asian carrier today. Asian carriers didn't start grabbing significant marketshare from western ones until the 1990s imo.
Here is what you could have expected on UAL in the 1980s in first class:
So maybe better, but your seat was a glorified barcalounger in the sky rather than a fold flat bed.
The reality is that the "best" international carriers (PanAm, BOAC, Air France, Swiss, later SQ, CX, JAL and LH) had far better soft product/service in the 50s/60s/early 70s and far worse hard product that what we see today.
United was late in the game, and only really had decent quality soft product from the end of the 80s till the 2000 crash. But even then, and even with the International First Product UA's soft product was not as good as the quality European (and by then Asian) carriers. I flew extensively in J, and to some extent in F in the 1996-2004 time frame, and other than the ITPE seats when they first came out, nothing about UA stood out. Getting on a flight by TG, AF, Swiss, SQ, CX, JAL was far superior, and when ANA upped its game it became a very good airline as well).
If you want to look at the "golden age" it is really in the last 15 years with far more comfortable airplanes and seats, the difference is that none of the US flag carriers (other than to some extent Delta) really try to compete on soft product, and then fall badly flat.