Dress code..
 

Hey ChuckD:

I would never look down at someone for dressing casually, that includes wearing jeans & sweaters in cold weather, etc. I came from a working calass family and my Dad always said to treat everybody the same: "Even the President puts his pants on one leg at a time"

It just Pi**Ses me off to have some one in clothes I would even give to the Salvation Army sitting next to me. I think it shows a lack on respect for yourself and your fellow travelers. True, things change, and i'm not one of those who longs for the "Good Old Days" (although First Class on Eastern was truly luxury) but common courtesy should not.

-Hammer

It's a different world since the days of the FC lounge on DC8/707's. I miss them and the special feeling i got when traveling back them. Today it's just a bunch of cattle, except for our FT members, of course.

Also known in my local airport as the WN terminal.

I'm a business casual person 99% of the time. Until 1995 (when I joined a small consulting firm), I worked in full-business dress environments. Sure, I looked nicer- but it was a darned expensive facade to maintain and a lot less comfortable. Dry-cleaning bills for the silk blouses. Hours of ironing for the things I washed myself. A couple of thousand $ a year to add new suits and accessories to the wardrobe. Endless pairs of pantyhose. Feet screaming at the end of the day after being trapped in high heels.

I fell bad about the demise of common courtesy but hope I never have to back to dressing like that six days a week (including church on Sunday) again.

707 FC Lounge & Eastern FC
 

Yep, Wheels_Up, you did get a special feeling. I never got to experience the true luxury of the 707 FC Lounge, but I did get to experience FC on the 727's a bit. I flew the Eastern Shuttle back in the day between LGA & BOS at least once a week, and down to TIA once a month.

Talking about Cattle, one wonders what the FC Lounge on the new A380 Titanic is going to be like...

Yeah, but it kind of tied into the whole casual dress being in some respects reprobate. I don't think a minority of idiots can be used as the basis for a zeitgeist critique. But I did get off the point a little. It seems we all agree that dirty/inappropriate clothes/people/behavior have no place on a plane or anywhere else.


'I find that Europeans are more polite. Less yelling on the cell phone'

I find that europeans seem to think europeans are more polite, but japanese as a whole are more polite and accomodating (except when it comes to riding the train).

Eastern's First Class was "luxurious"? I know some old H.E.A.L. (Hate Eastern Air Lines) members from the 60s who would beg to differ. :D

Actually, I flew Eastern First Class on a few occasions, including longer flights (ATL-LAX) that featured the Ionosphere Service. It really wasn't bad and the seats on those old DC-8s seemed alot wider and deeper than today's light weight specials. As for lounges, Eastern had two of the nicest on it's L-1011 Whisperliners, one for First Class and one for Coach. Seating was 2-4-2 with a big divider in the middle section that made it more like 2-2 seating.

For awhile in 1972/73, TWA even offered a bar/lounge in the middle of its domestic 707s. Flying was downright classy back then, regardless of what class you travelled in. People dressed alot nicer, too.

Speaking of TWA and the "Good Old Days", some of you may enjoy these two posts I submitted about airline travel in the 1970s:

TWA First Class DEN-JFK 1972 - The Good Old Days

Denver to Honolulu via Canada in1976

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I graduated HS in '76
 

Hi Seat 2A:

Great threads, thanks for posting. I vaguely remember the '70's too ;) Enjoy those Northern Lights!!

-Hammer

I am 21, I don't remember the good ol days, I never flew in the good ol days, and I don't care what it was like in the good ol days. Times change, and not for the worst.

Now-a-days I dress depending on where I am flying and in what class. If I am flying domestic I'm probably in F/C so I know I am not looking for an op-up and will dress down a bit more.

If I am flying international C, I always dress nicely because it may increase chances of a gate upgrade to F. Rare indeed, but every bit helps. After take-off I just switch into PJ's.

In intl F (the one time I was), I dressed to the nines because it felt good to be dressed up in intl F. On the same flight across the aisle was a passenger in hiking attire (imagine a paleontologist on his way to a dig) so YMMV.

If in any situation the upgrade is not confirmed before day of, I will always show up looking nice(er), just in case.

It sucks, but I am always aware of how I dress when I travel and because of this I dress from jeans and a nice polo or dry cleaned button up to a jacket with jeans (don't really do slacks) straight out of the dryer.

My next trip is long and I have NC/NF confirmed. I think I'll forgo dressing nicely and just arrive at the airport already dressed in my PJ's and flip flops. All of you that have a problem can watch my backside as I take my comfortable tired self to seat 1A and then 15A on the upper deck of an UA 744. The sad part about it is that I'll be thinking that I should not have dressed down so much, but who cares. Last year in college, gotta be sloppy sometime.

anc

on a side note: I do NOT like the idea of allowing cell phone usage during the flight, and of course, like my other young(er) passengers, I am always polite and think about others when in the air.

Toes and body hair
 

Flying in jeans and tennis shoes doesn't bother me. Flying in shorts and a non collared shirt doesn't bother me. Being comfortable and practical is totally acceptable. People getting on a plane with flip flops or sockless sandals, especially those in need of "grooming" totally annoys me. Unfortunately, the flip-flops are usually part of a package ensemble that includes, for the guys, a tank top with lots of protruding hair, and for the women (more often than not from my observation) a halter top that exposes more than a few inches of skin. Airline travel has certainly become inexpensive enough for almost anyone to fly, but exposed body parts that are normally covered in polite company are unacceptable and can't be justified by cheap airfares. Church is free (well, supposedly) and I have never seen flip-flops there, regardless of the denomination

And for the record, I vote very strongly against allowing all those idiots that can't stay off a phone from having cell phone use during a flight - unless the airlines pass out noise cancelling headphones to block out all the self-important fools that believe they must scream at the top of their lungs to be heard on a cell phone.

I figure its all down money. In the good old days, it used to cost a fair bit to travel, nowadays, any body can fly. So the people who used to have to take the greyhound coach can now take a plane ride instead. You get a different demographic flying nowadays than you used to before the price wars and this I believe has a direct impact on the number of inconsiderate people flying as well as the cramped seating in cattle class.

I'm not quite sure if the Europeans are better than anybody else, I fly regularly from and to Rome and there's been loads of instances of queue jumping and yelling on mobile phones.

Good old days..
 

Well.. too bad that you will look back on this period of your life as "the good old days" I think the point that I and other old farts have been trying to make is that because Air Travel was not the commodity that it is today, it was much more of a "special" experience with a lot more attention paid to quality of Service and creature comforts (i.e. meals dissapearing on Transcon flights, etc)

It is good to know that you are always polite, my oldest Son is 20 and I have taught him (and his Brothers) to respect other folks and have Common Courtesy, a trait that sadly, IMO, is not being taught by too many Parents to their children these days. As a veteran Volunteer Coach in Rec Sports in my town for 8 years, I have experienced this first hand.

Who knows, when you get to your mid forties (perish the thought) Space Travel may be a special experience...

-Hammer

-Hammer

I go every which way on some of the points in this forum.

1 - Cell phones. Agree with most everyone I've ever seen that we dread the day they're allowed in-flight. Please no no no no no! I also have a curiosity question I have seen dozens of times -- flights lands, cell phones are turned on, and they ring! It is just coincidence, or do you think someone is dialing that cell phone every minute hoping to hit the exact moment the person turns it on after landing? Mine's never done that.

2 - "Bumping" people. I am 6'2", 250 lbs. My carry-ons almost always include the allowed "one briefcase and one personal item." It is very, very difficult to maneuver the narrow coach aisles without bumping one side or the other. If it's egregious, I always apologize for the bumping. But when boarding, the bumping is going to happen. If I'm sitting in an aisle seat, I always watch for other pax bumping me . . . and try to avoid. But I don't get mad about it. I see the (narrow) situation.

3 - Dress. See no need for "nice" clothes on a plane, although 90%+ of my travel is for business and I'm either suited up or biz casual. But for overseas vacations, for example, I'll generally wear my "track suit" for comfort & sleeping. Is this offensive? Isn't it the first class pax on int'l who get "sleep suits" (I wouldn't know) as part of their perks? Shouldn't I get the same thing, one I bring myself?

As for butts and other body parts hanging out . . . on attractive young women, keep it comin'. All others, get dressed.

Voicemail Messages ?

Maybe. My service doesn't "call" me when I have one -- a couple of beeps. But maybe that's it.