alison11

If anyone can remember back that far, in the 1960's and 70's...

Was there a public transit option from LAX to downtown?
Did AA serve London during that time?
How many terminals were there?

Thanks for any information or perspective!

zman

AA did not serve London
There were a few buses
Most of the existing terminals (Except for TBI) were there except there was only one level.
The terminals have expanded toward the run ways and added the 2nd floor.

HNL

The terminals were islands originally and passengers accessed them via underground passageways. The terminals were not expanded toward the runways, rather concourses were constructed that connect the land side with the islands.

alison11

Anyone have experiences on flights to Hawaii? Did the flight take longer than it does now?

Gardyloo

It took a lot longer on DC-6Bs and Connies.

I remember when LAX was on the other side of Sepulveda.

Cannonball Run

1984 olympics.....

United and Pan Am basically owned the Hawaii routes in those days - Don't recall when AA really started serving Hawaii. North runway opened sometime in the early 1960 - I remember the day I road my bicycle to LAX (from Sunset BLVD) and was on the North Runway with my bike before being chased off....

guv1976

When the route was flown with 707s, DC-8s, and 747s, it probably took a little less time than it does now. Those aircraft had slightly higher cruising speeds than many of the aircraft that fly the route today.

MDSD

IIRC, AA began HNL flights in the early 1980s. I flew a PanAm 707 LAX-HNL in June, 1970 w/a not-yet-two-yr-old lap child; don't remember the precise flight time, but in memory it was interminable.

kebosabi

You can catch a glimpse of LAX back in the day in the 007 movie "Diamonds Are Forever"

I think the opening sequence to "The Graduate" was shot at the current Alaska Airlines terminal 3. Seeing that very little has changed since the filming of that movie, you can tell LAX desperately needs a makeover

dayone

Prior the '84 makeover, I seem to recall parking and/or perhaps rental car spots between the terminals.

bernardd

I'm fairly sure the LAX-LHR route was one of the package sold by TWA to AA. At the time TWA would have competed against PanAm & BA and possibly others.

CALlegacy

I worked a summer there on the ramp for AA, 7:00 PM to 3:00 AM shift. As described it was just the satellite accessed from underground. TBIT was not there then. We handled baggage with IDL tags in those days.

The main aircraft types I worked were B707, but we had one flight a night that was a DC-6B, as I recall, I think to SAT. That was a pain because the height off the ground to the cargo door was much more than the Boeing. Having the baggage pods for the front hold made a big difference. Baggage was all handled by reading the bag tags, which were color coded as well as labelled. Connecting flights were not nearly so prevalent then. In the sorting room pods were marked with chalk for flight, gate, and destination. For flights with multiple stops getting the pods set up in correct order for access in the front cargo hold was the trick. All kinds of stuff went in the aft cargo hold. The big ones I remember were boxes of fresh flowers headed east and caskets, usually one or two every day. There was a special run on the baggage tractor to the LAX post office to pick up air mail which made a nice break around 1:00 AM. They also had one or two flights on Convair 990's. They called those "screamy mimis" because the engines on those planes had a high pitch whistle that was the loudest penetrating sound I think I ever experienced.

TWA was in Terminal 3 across the way. They flew mainly 707-320's around then. For some reason if they got stuck landing on 25L or R they would take a quick exit and round the corner at Terminal 4 at what seemed like fantastic speed to get over to 3. That would probably be taxiways AN and M, but I wouldn't be sure about that at all.

When I was there ramp employees were threatening to strike. Summer hires were technically management, which was really bad because no way that little group of us were going to get on the wrong side of people with real jobs. Fortunately it was all resolved without a walk out.

One of the major past-times for some guys was talking catering into tossing down unserved steak dinners from first class. You could hide out in the aft cargo hold long enough to eat the thing and ditch the evidence. The food was headed to garbage anyway. (I doubt anyone who would track down the miscreants is still worrying about such things as that.)

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

Heh. I was just remarking to a friend yesterday that Koreans who come here from ICN must be flabbergasted to see that one of the most important cities of this world superpower has an airport like LAX.

kebosabi

That's exactly how I feel whenever I fly back from YVR

alison11

I was there last weekend and stunned at the condition of the place. My local Greyhound station has a better ambience than LAX.

A skycap told me that the Bradley terminal was a temporary box built for the Olympics. But then all those airlines had no place to go back to after the Olympics, so they have been there since.

I wonder if it was the 32 Olympics she was speaking of? I would not be suprised.