Kamalaasaa

With respect to light passenger loads, I was on an EMB-120 (30-seat turboprop) once in the late '80s that had only 4 passengers. The flight attendant told us we all needed to move to the back for takeoff in order to balance the load, but once we were airborne we could sit wherever we wanted.

I'm probably not the only one on here who had such an experience!

chrisl137

I walked across the east/west Berlin border a few times in 86/87 and don't recall anything at all like that with currency. It was actually one of the easier borders I dealt with. The first time was with a couple other students and we had to exchange the minimum amount of money at 1:1, and it was 35 DM or something like that. We took some streetcars and subways and couldn't figure out what the fare was, so we put in some random coins and pulled the lever and out came tickets. With a little experimenting we figured out that it didn't actually matter if you put in a coin - if you pulled the lever you got a ticket. Returning, they had buckets or something where you were supposed to throw your unspent ostmarks. There was no accounting- people walked by and tossed money in and walked back to West Berlin. I think I still have some coins and maybe a small bill floating around somewhere. The East German at the checkpoint on the way out was on the phone with his girlfriend and just waved us out.

The second time was with my GF at the time, and we were both fluent German speakers. When we got to the passport control we handed them our US passports and greeted them in German. They saw our US passports and greeted us in English. We heard English and replied in English. They heard German and replied in German. Then we swapped again, and again at least one more time. It was very amusing. Similar experience exiting as the previous time.

chrisl137

It happened before the gulf war - it was very clearly because of crowding because they had been letting anybody through for part of the day and then started making announcements restricting it to passengers only while we were in line.

Back in those days I carried a big old metal waffle iron (one with four toast sized quadrants) through the checkpoint in my bag and they didn't even blink.

TravelerMSY

If you flew Southwest, the experience was almost exactly the same as it is now. Except their planes had rear facing seats in row one. Boarding passes were numbered plastic cards given to you at the gate. Tickets were paper and you checked in at the airport. Luggage tags were colorful handwritten things with strings on them.

chrisl137

That was true into at least the late 90s, and I think I sat in the rear facing row 1 in at least the early 2000s.

ysolde

He was in a car (may have been part of it). It was the (late?) 70s (maybe early 80s, given his age?), and they were still apparently paranoid about West Germans driving in and out of the East. They really didn't want anyone who might have intentions of corrupting people (money corrupted), let alone picking someone up and driving them out -- and a car coming in from the West was immediately suspicious, even if it was driven by an absent-minded professor.

rustykettel

I first flew in 1986, so my memories are from the later part and into the 90's:
- walking back through the smoking section to use the rear lavs and the no smoking signs being turned off after takeoff and again before landing along with the seatbelt signs. Working ashtrays in the armrests even in the non-smoking section
- walking through the security lines without any ID (especially as a kid). I carried a boxed set of books through with me without anyone saying anything or even directing me to put it on the X-ray belt. Putting keys, wallets, pocketknives and other small metal items in a dish, walking through the metal detector, then collecting your items.
- meals in Y weren't just hot, but you got asked if you wanted the chicken or the beef (or whatever the two options were)
- paying for a headset rental so you could watch the movie
- FA's would hand out magazines and newspapers. Bulkhead partitions had racks for magazines.
- having the paper ticket collected and the stub returned to you. Later there were automated machines that the GA would insert the boarding pass into.
- flying with my dad when one of our seats was given to someone else and we were reseated into F because my dad insisted to the FA that we sit together.
- pillows and blankets (flimsy and thin) in Y
-tarmac boarding and rear air stairs

miamiflyer8

Those were the days!

invisible

OK. Please take into consideration following:

- There was only one, state airline - Aeroflot. Their slogan was 'Fly on Aeroflot planes', like most things back in Soviet Union it ended up having double meanings - you obviously did not have another alternative.

- Flying was one a lifetime experience, pretty much for 99% of people. Even with 'official' prices - like the one TBS-SVO 1045 miles flight - costed 37 rubles that time. Average monthly salary was 120 rubles, but unless you've been high ranking Party member, you could not buy tickets on these prices - you had to pay bribes to everyone and real price of ticket was like 150 rubles at the end. And you'd be lucky if you could buy ticket on that price.

- You could not buy anything over the phone - you had to go to Aeroflot's office, and get your number in line. And wait, most times for hours, but spending out a night was quite common as well. At the end you would end up in front cashier who would tell you that there are no tickets. So, get a hint - pay a bribe.

- There was no centralized reservation system covering whole SU until beginning of 80s. Every local office was selling tickets for flights originated from that location.

- You had to show up at the airport 3-4 hours before the departure and get into another line for registration. And if you wanted to get 'normal' seat on that flight you had to pay another bribe at registration - so it was in your interest to get there as early as possible.

- There were plane crashes. A LOT of plane crashes which were never told on TV/newspapers, but rumors and word of mouth spread them across the country. My family did not attend church, but before we had flights (three times - in 1984, 85, 88) my mother and all women in extended family went to church to pray for safe flight. No, it is not a joke - look at number of crashes in 70s/80s and you will get an idea.

- There were Tu-134/154 and Yak-40/42 planes as a backbone of fleet. Tu-154 was considered luxury, comparing to Yak. What I remember (it was >30 years ago) they've been extremely loud. Overhead bins were really small - you could put a briefcase there and nothing more. And they have been open.

- Tu-134 IIRC had quite unusual seats at bulkhead: there two rear-faced seats and there was a table in between, so like the compartment at trains.

- Here is a blog post (in Russian) with pictures of Soviet planes in 60s/70s/80s, starting from photo #34.

- Luggage was whole another matter - it was torture. Average wait time until you get your stuff from the moment of landing was 2-3 hours. At least it was in Tbilisi, Vilnius, Leningrad. When we flew to Moscow, we received our luggage 20 min after we got into arrival hall. My father was so impressed with it that he was telling this like a fairy tale to everybody upon return. In TBS, where there was a belt for luggage, it never worked and luggage was just dumped in the middle of hall on floor - you had to go and find your own.

That's pretty much all I can remember... We did not eat at planes because my mother never trusted (for a reason) state provided food and always packed our own to eat on plane.

Reds2011

Forget about the 80's! This perfectly describes a flight Mrs Reds2011 & I took less than 3 years ago. On our way AUH-MAN-ORD.

AUH-MAN was standard EY fare, but MAN-ORD was on an AA 757 held together with duct tape, which I thought was going to self destruct on takeoff.

It was like going back in time, and not in a good way. Our daughter who was 6 at the time had only ever flown on QF/EY/SQ/QR etc and was extremely unimpressed. She asked me how she could get the kids channel on there!

The best part came when the FA was dishing out AA's excuse for a meal and my daughter piped up and asked "Why don't you have screens in the back of the seat like every other airplane does?" The freezing look she got, along with me, would have shamed Elsa from Frozen.

Also memorable for being the only international flight I have ever taken in ~28 years where I was expected to pay for liquor. Beer was complimentary but spirits were not.

moondog

I remember:

1. Airline tickets for sale in the classifieds (as mentioned upthread)

2. People Express
-tickets paid for with cash on board
-we might never know about Newark, were it not for them

floridastorm

Aeroflot is now one of the safest airlines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ne...st-in-the-sky/

nerd

That's equal to around $6,000, so yes, that's a lot of money relative to what most people would be able to afford, even today.

pinniped

My 80's memories:

- The MCI-MDW route had about 20 flights/day with stiff competition between WN and Midway Airlines. $19 one-way, pay at the gate, was common. We could take a daytrip to a Cubs game for $75 per person, including food + bus fares + game ticket, no problem.

- TWA was our main legacy carrier. In the earliest years of its FFP, it often had crazy-generous promos. Buy a couple cheap coach round-trips, get a free F round-trip. Bonus miles upon bonus miles weren't hard to get. At first, TWA had lots of interesting nonstops that don't exist on any carrier today (before hub-and-spoke dominated). But eventually everything filtered through STL.

- When we bought an international ticket, we'd go to the ticket office in downtown KC. This actually survived into the early 90's.

- When I bought a ticket back to the U.S. from a student travel agency abroad, the ticket was often hand-written.

- I literally paid CASH - peeling off $20 bills or 20 pound notes - for quite a few airline tickets. Nobody considered this in any way suspicious.

- My friends and I occasionally bought tickets, last-minute, based on an ad in a travel agent's window. (This may have been very early 90's. I know Ryanair existed at this point.)

invisible

Up to very recent change in last year, at UA TPAC/TATL flight you have to pay for any liquor in Y, including beer.