A Walk Down Memory Lane
 

In other posts, I notice a lot of old-timers kicking back in their rocking chairs with their drool cups, thinking about the airlines that are no more.

A lot of folks seem to remember Peoples Express. Do you have any other memories about airlines that bit the dust that you would like to share?

I'll start. I remember flying on Air Florida between DCA and MIA about 6 months before their terrible tragedy. I was taking pictures out the window on the flight and accidentally dropped my lens cap cover between the seats. After searching for 30 minutes, I gave up but mentioned it to the flight attendant on the way out. All she asked was what seat I was in. Two days later, I received a FedEx envelope with the lens cap enclosed!

Probably I'm one of the few who remember People Express with warm, fuzzy feelings. As a starving student, it was one of the few airlines I could afford to fly. Since I was (then) rather younger (not to mention smaller), the excitement of a trip was more than sufficient to overcome the discomfort of long-lines and cattle-car flight.

Another defunct airline (from the, gasp, Sixties) I remember with rather less affection: Trans Texas Airlines. We used to call it Tree Top Airlines. Routes mostly in Texas (surprise) and Louisiana.

Because I grew up in Central America, I have great memories of flying Braniff and PanAm back when flying (even in steerage) was fun and even comfortable. Of course, it's easy to be comfortable in an airline seat when you're a kid. Here's the amusing detail: when we traveled in the Fifities and Sixties, we used to dress up! Mom would wear a tailored suit, as would Dad (but with trousers rather than skirt), brother likewise in a spiffy suit and I in a proper dress, white lace socks, black shiny shoes and a light tailored coat! My, we were a stylish family.

So ends my jaunt down memory lane.

Cheers!
KatW

Memories! Lots of them. My wife (before we were married) was in New York on business and returned to DCA the day Allegheny (SP?) became US Air (now US Airways). Her flight arrived about two hours late (that's pretty good for a less-than-one-hour flight), and I met her at the airport. Her first comment was, "Well, Agony Airlines just became Useless Air." From all reports, they've improved since then, but I don't really know.
Second memory: An Agony Air flight, New York (don't remember which airport) to BWI on (I think) a DC-9 before they put doors on the overheads. Just before landing, we crossed a weather front (to turn and land behind the storm). The bottom fell out. A passenger on the other side of the aisle still had a drink. It literally came out of the glass and created a column of liquid suspended in air. When we hit bottom, he really looked ridiculous as he tried to catch the falling drink in his glass. Everything in the overheads came out, first suspended in air, then falling on whatever or whoever happended to be below. Fortunately, there were no injuries. Funny in retrospect. Not at all funny at the time.
More to come.

People Express was a class airline that probably tried to do too much for too little. They were probably the best of the cut-rate lines, and it's unfortunate they're not still around to show the way. But then, how many cut-rate lines (Southwest excluded) still are?

I don't think I'm either "sitting in a Rocking Chair" or "drooling." But the airlines that are no more still fascinate me. Kep it up.

Did anyone ever fly on DanAir? They were great fun... They still flew Comet's until they finished not that many years ago.

On the Comet's you used to be able to sit face-to-face at a table for four, which was great, apart from if you were one of the one's going backwards (yuck!).

I have alot of happy memories of DanAir, I used to fly with them on holiday to Spain when I was a child - which isn't as long ago as some of you may think!
MF

I think it was DanAir (about 13 years ago) that flew us from LHR to Jeersey or Guernsey - but I am not sure anymore.

age: I consider myself (only by age) the senior here (near 56).

Uffff - philforest just beats me (born 31)

Does anyone have memories of Freddie Laker's
Airline, since he started the discount airline craze?

All I remember is hearing a story that he went bankrupt and shut down.

The airlines I remember from Commericials:

National with the singing Flight attendants
"I'm (fill in name of female flight attendant) FLY ME!"

Eastern: which used to serve Florida and be "the exclusive airline to Disneyworld." The commercials (in English and Spanish with the silver and blue jet flying over blue skies!)

Pan Am: I really regret I didn't fly one of their flights. I have a mug I bought when the
crew set up a store at Grand Central Terminal
to try to buy the airline.

I've already talked about People's Express,
the official airline for East Coast College students.

Not bad for a kid of 32! (And several hundred in CAT years!)

I'm so disappointed that I don't have any interesting airline stories to tell. Someone should put these tales in a book for youngsters like & jamiel to see "When FLying was FUN!" CATMAN

Don't remember DanAir, but I do remember (maybe on US Air?) the first rows of coach - probably was no first - having that table. Bridge game was fun, especially during takeoff and landing, when they didn't make us fold it up.

Catman -- That would be Sir Freddie's Sky Train, extant from something like 1977 to 1983. I flew Sky Train twice from NYC to Gatwick in 1979 . . . worked out fine and, lord knows, the price was right! Something like $200 (remember these were 1977 dollars!) roundtrip.
Cheers!
KatW

Guess we need some West Coast input on this thread...

Early memories from late 60's -- flying Western Airlines on a Boeing 720 from San Diego to Phoenix. Think they were the only carrier to fly those things!

PSA -- incredible hot pants on the stews (that's what they used to be called). Flew PSA flight 182 from SMF to SAN the day before it crashed (thus becoming forever immortalized in the SAN area as People Scattered Allover)

AirCal -- always seemed a step behind PSA

Hughes AirWest -- the flying banana. Unfondly referred to as Hughes AirWorst.

AeroMexico -- we spent lots of time in Mexico when I was growing up, usually flying from Tijuana. Never flew AM -- it was known as AeroBurro and the pilots used to sit in the bar at the airport and down massive amounts of tequila prior to getting on the plane. Scary in retrospect...

Like KatW, we ALWAYS dressed to get on an airplane. Other than the crowds, that to me is the major change in air travel. In first class I often see people in what I wouldn't consider wearing outside my own backyard!

Memories, like the corners of our lives...

I have midwestern memories of Ozark Airlines---between Chicago and St. Louis. I was a flying geek then too. I was probably twelve, my brother eight, and we were flying together unaccompanied to visit our grandparents in Chicago. I found the one flight each way that was a stopping-flight (mind you there was hourly nonstop service). My brother and I stopped in 5 cities on the trip and never the same one twice (STL/Springfield/Bloomington/ORD on a DC9 going up, ORD/Decatur/Mattoon/Mt. Vernon/STL going back on a FH-227. Am I warped...

No, you aren't warped! When I was 12 years old, my mother lived in Providence, RI and my father and I lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

I could fly up on Allegheny Airlines nonstop but always chose to fly a Nord-262 to Newark connecting to a Allegheny BAC-111 that stopped in Hartford on the way to Providence. I chose the 4 hour journey over the 55 minute flight anytime I could.

Also, when I was 16, I flew Northwest from Minneapolis to Seattle. Did I choose the nonstop? Nope. I took the 727 that went Minneapolis-Fargo-Billings-Bozeman-Butte-Spokane-Seattle!!!! The good old days before deregulation....

All right..1963..flying out of Eglin AFB, FL on a Southern (Sufferin') Airways DC-3 to Newark with my parents...

FA's (Stewardesses, then) in nicely short skirts (mini's a couple of years in the future). Plane goes up; plane goes down. Repeat several dozen times. FA comes up to me and asks in a very sexy voice, "Can I help you, sir?" (SIR? I'm 14 years old!)

I hand her the filled barf bag. End of another romance.

Any puke repeats this, I will categorically deny it.

-Harry