MSPeconomist

Paper tickets and that red carbon backing.

At some airports, seats being manually assigned at check in using stickers from a seat map, which I remember for a TWA 747 at ATH.

Calling at midnight to request an upgrade and having it confirmed immediately.

Being mailed a paper brochure of the FF T&C with renewal credentials every year and carrying the wallet card summary in order to argue that I had purchased an upgradeable fare. Shena happened then too.

darthbimmer

I took my first flight in 1989, so near the end of the era OP is asking about, but far enough back to experience how very different things were at the time:

1) Start with how you'd book a ticket. There were no web travel sites or smartphone apps back then; you'd either call a travel agent to do everything for you or you'd open the phone book to find the 1-800 numbers for the airlines and then spend at least half an hour sitting at a table calling around and jotting down flight numbers, departure and arrival times, and costs on a piece of note paper before deciding.

2) A few days later your paper ticket would arrive in the mail. You'd better not lose it! Paper tickets were treated with the same care you'd treat a wad of cash... more care, actually, because cash can be folded and unfolded countless times and still be used.

3) Airports weren't as crowded as they are today. That meant shorter lines for everything and very little combat mentality of people jockeying for position.

4) Smoking. I joined the jet set recently enough that I was able to avoid having to be on smoking flights. And thank gawd because second-hand smoke in confined spaces sickens me pretty badly. (I know what it's like because in the 70s and 80s "second-hand smoke in confined spaces" described pretty much everywhere in the public sphere.)

5) "In-flight entertainment" meant you brought your own newspapers, magazines, or books. Or you watched the movie. As in, the one movie on the one screen in the entire cabin. Which you rarely could see well.

CDTraveler

Considering that in the 80's a one-way ticket could easily cost 4x of a RT, some of us found selling the return portion of a ticket to be a great deal. Oh, and gender didn't have to match - I have a definitely feminine first name and usually sold my return ticket to guys. My part of the ticket would be BOS-SFO and then I'd post a card on the bulletin board of a college near my home and sell the return to some other college student going the other way.

It's not just the number of people flying, it's also how much time each person spends in the airport. In the 80's I'd arrive at the airport about 45 minutes before flight time, security, if there was any, was a WTMD, and there were no boarding wars because people checked bags. Post 9/11 I try to get to the airport at least 2 hours before boarding time to allow for security, post-security beverage purchase, etc. If you have the same number of people spending twice as long in an airport it will feel more crowded because you'll have double the number of bodies in airport/hour.

MSPeconomist

For entertainment, airlines supplied a variety of magazines.

The_Bouncer

It was 1992. I was 14 (and looked 20).

I was a UM (although not officially documented as such) on Air Lanka (the forerunner of today's UL), flying MEL-CMB-LGW in a Lockheed Tristar, with technical stops at DXB (I think, or it may have been AUH or BAH) and IST.

Having scavenged a couple of small plastic cups of beer with the meal service, I was overjoyed to be served a shot of cognac with the coffee afterwards. At 14, I felt quite the man-about-town, with my brandy and the cigarette I had bummed from my seat-mate, along with the FA bringing me another cognac.

I was in Y, of course, but to my 14yo self, I was in heaven.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.

OskiBear

Remember when every surface on the airline side of things was red because of the tickets? Same with travel agencies?

Phones, keyboards, counters, etc. Everything had a layer of red on it.

Sometimes you can still spot really old furniture/equipment at the airport when you see it stained red.

Mwenenzi

Not really. Most aircraft flew at about the same speed as now. Some were a little faster, like the B727.
What has changed a lot is the time from closing to the aircraft door to wheels up and wheels down to the aircraft door opening. On ground congestion/time has increased a lot.

COSPILOT

Flying in the 80's was great. Flights weren't so full like now, and often I could get a row to myself on a DC-10 for red-eye flights from Hawaii. Even had DC-10 operations between DEN-COS.

Seemed to get a meal on most flights, chicken or beef, which at the time seemed bad, but I would gladly take it today.

Airlines focused operations on the destination, UA FA's had different uniforms and the music during boarding was Hawaiian for example.

Security was so easy, with some of my scuba gear always part of my carry on, of which included a fancy multi knife that was rarely a concern.

highops

Amex Green got students one $99 round trip per year.

We were all pre-check.

Jeannietx

Yes this is what I remember.

Jeannietx

My first commercial flight was in 1959, CRP-SFO.

Yeah, I'm older than dirt.

First flight was in a private plane.

Siempre Viajando

My first international flight was in 1983, from YYZ to AMS on KL. My father bought me the ticket as a college graduation gift. I remember that the price was C$720, which is not a whole lot less than you might pay today for the same flight. The plane (a 747) was crowded and I got lucky with a window seat. Didn't sleep much but I remember looking over the UK as we started our descent. It was fascinating to see Europe for the first time, from the air. Nowadays I'm back in Toronto and fly to Europe once or twice a month on business, sometimes to AMS and sometimes on KL. It's like taking the city bus to work, even though it's in J these days.

I also recall a flight in April of 1988, on NW (remember them??) from SFO to NRT. Long flight on a 747. I was in the back of course, a backpacker. It was almost empty. At one point I got up to stretch my legs, and walked to the back of the plane, past row after row of empty seats, through the smoking section. There was a Japanese "sarariman" sitting in a window seat, smoking, looking out the window, all alone, with nothing but an ocean of empty seats around him. I'm exaggerating of course but not much! Amazing to think of planes flying that empty in the context of today's reality.

One more memory: on every flight in every class there was always a free meal, even on relatively short domestic flights. I was a skinny 20-something with a huge appetite, and one meal was never enough. So I always used to ask for another one. And I don't recall a single flight when they didn't have an extra one to give me.

Yup, those were the days.

pseudoswede

If you just want to listen to the in-flight movie, you could lie down and listen to it through the pneumatic headphone ports in the arm rests.

Kamalaasaa

Those meals in coach were served using ceramic dishes, glassware, and metal flatware - no plastic to be found. A number of years ago (1990s or early 2000s) my mom and sister found some of those airline dishes (new; I think they were Delta) for sale in a salvage store.

Airlines were still transitioning to the hub-and-spoke model, so there were routes that you won't see today, left over from the old point-to-point system.

There were more airlines, too, and their route networks weren't as large as today's post-merger carriers, so if you were flying between smaller cities and/or from one region of the country to another, there was a good chance your itinerary would be on two or more carriers.

And those carriers might have included regional ("commuter") airlines that operated under their own identity, branding, and livery rather than as the Delta Connection, United Express, or American Eagle.

Flight attendants gave out pin-on wings to children (and big kids who asked nicely!). Over time the pins were replaced with adhesive (part of the "making childhood safe for children" movement) and eventually the wings were eliminated altogether. In recent years they have made a comeback, and just this summer AA became the last of the big US carriers to reinstate them.

My first flight was as a teenager in 1980, on Eastern. The first leg included a stop in Montgomery, AL, on the way to Atlanta, where we changed to an L1011 bound for Buffalo. I still remember the novelty of dinner service up in the air, although I have long forgotten the menu (but I think it was beef).

aerosexual

Were flights cheaper because of the competition? Or more expensive or just the same in spite of it?