i remember thedays....
 

when meal service was free on ALL flights.

Now its just in First and Business if youre flying domestic. I'll just buy my BurgerKing Burgers and take theminto Y insteadof pay anextra $1000 ^^

We're lucky: we fly HA x-Pac: full meal service in both cabins. And great u/g options for us Plat.'s! Travel in F for Y fares + $150 or 15k! Luv it!

P.S. I remember when Y was nice and Stew.'s doubled as fashion models. Grrrowwwww! ;)

I remember the days when domestic Y flights cost about as much as domestic F does now.

You're obviously not flying the right airlines/routes. Of the last 20 flights I took, only 2 had the buy on board concept, and these were very short runs (less than 50 mins).
The rest had at least some free juice and biccies (again we're talking hour-long flights) or a full meal (usually cold cuts, salad, and a little sweet in Y and a proper hot meal in C). Longest flight I've taken this year was a massive 2 hours 5 mins.

... when a four-year-old could get the middle seat between two friendly businessmen and be entertained all the way from Chicago to Houston.

They were strangers, I was in the middle seat and my mom was two rows up with my older brother. No one thought anything of it. That would never happen now.

It was my third flight - but the first that I remember.

when your family (or whomever) could "escort" you not only to the plane but get on, give you a kiss goodbye and then leave.....


go visit the pilots and actually "talk" to them for a while

Those were the days, I regularly spent take off and landing on the jump seat.

When the government regulated airfares, food and service were the only ways airlines could differentiate their product (all ticket prices were the same). Hence, there was extravagant food and good service. But don't forget the flip-side, flying under regulated fares was very, very expensive --- a rare treat for the middle class.

Good point. Ten years ago a mid-week with no weekend stay coach roundtrip between LAX and JFK ran $1650 (it was refundable though). Didn't make a difference if I bought it two weeks in advance. Now-a-days the same ticket (albeit non-refundable) is under $500.

Yes, but there's an exponentially higher chance you won't MAKE IT to JFK if anything goes wrong now.

...when plenty of the UK domestic shuttle services were turn-up-and-go.

...when you could always, always get on the earlier flight if you got to the airport early.

...when the departures lounge was little more than a bar in the corner (open at 8am) selling ancient bottles of Britvic fruit juice at extortionate prices.

...when your bags were always waiting for you at the luggage carrousel.

...when queues were only for charter flights, and even then, only 10 minutes long.

...when the local airport's business lounge was accessed by simply knowing where it was (it was in an obscure part of the airport, in amongst some offices).

...when the way to get cheap flights was to buy 'bucket' seats on undersold charter flights, from shady operators making almost all their money from insurance sales and currency commission. You would then be dumped an a military airfield in the middle of nowhere in some random country, and realise, as all the tour customers are whisked off, that you have to attempt to make your own way to the nearest town, wherever that may be.

...when, to go from the UK to France, you ended up queueing up at the Post Office for a 'British Visitors Passport', available over the counter.

...when all frequent fliers in the UK carried their Schiphol 'See Buy Fly' bags as a symbol of pride!

...when CDG1 seemed like an avant-garde vision of the future!

I am sure there will be places where this is still the case.
The main lounge at SKG (used by practically every airline apart from A3) used to be like this last year. It's probably closed now, as OA have opened their own lounge and, between themselves and Aegean, they can easily cover the tiny number of premium pax passing through the a/p (I've been on flights where WHY was so full and C so empty that they simply did away with the curtain and had an all-Y service).

Swordfish or Filet Mignon cooked-to-order in F, along with fresh baked cookies in the oven... That was F on AA back in '92-94, between YUL and ORD (!).

JP

They still do... on SQ, CX and JL; FA's on US-based legacy carriers now double as grandmothers of fashion models.

Yup, any non-US carriers will do, but mainly the Asian airlines.

... when you could go directly to the gate and sit anywhere on the plane. :D Smoking section was defined by a card on top of the seat, and moved back a row if requested.
( I have never smoked, but the thought that pax were immune to second hand smoke because they were one row behind it seems funny now ).

It seems hard to believe there used to be smoking flights. I remeber them from my youth but could not imagine them now. Traveling through many Mexican airports this year I would often be thankful for smoke free flights.

.....where at most U.S. airports, non-passengers can walk as far as to the gates to drop/pick up passengers.

When our BEA flight from LHR to Oslo was delayed for two hours and the airline took us into their lounge(?) for a buffet of tea and sandwiches. That was in August 1967.

I remember... or rather I'm often told the story of my first long-distance "solo" flight from SFO to JFK at the age of 5. Apparently I thought both seats were for me and the kind business man how had the misfortune of being assigned next to me had to get an FA to explain otherwise. We had a good time, even if I did end up with gum covering my entire head and that flight started a long trend of old people entertaining a "friendly" kid on his annual trek to the big apple.

These days I think you'd be hard pressed to find a parent who would let a 5 yearold fly solo for 5+ hours or a businessman next to them who would do anything but ask for a new seat. Although let me tell you, no one gets more free perks than an unaccompanied 5 yearold with gum in his hair.

...when the non-smoking section of a Lufthansa 737 flight from Frankfurt to Stuttgart was the left hand side, with a downward air current separating the smoking section on the right hand side of the aisle. Even as an 11 year old, I wondered what grown-up was stupid enough to think that would work.