dilanesp

1. Economy plus didn't exist back then, so you can actually do a lot more now about lack of legroom (and 31 inch pitch was a thing by the 1980's) now than you could then. You can also get first class cheap with TOD upgrades and the like.

2. I think the whole air travel experience is the point. As I said- and I truly believe this- one reason why inflight meals were so much better in the past is because there really weren't a lot of other options. Now there are, so you don't need as much food on board.

dilanesp

And it's also worth noting that PE and a lot of other super-low fare airlines of that era went bust. Really, the only two that survived were Southwest (which used the enormous customer goodwill it built up to switch to a higher fare model) and America West (which merged with legacy carrier US Airways and later with legacy carrier American and now operates as American with a traditional legacy carrier cost structure). So it's perfectly clear that the only reason people got that $69 airfare back then was because the airline was losing money.

AlreadyThere

I found an old boarding pass that reminded me that once in the early 1980s, before Frontier Airlines switched to the Chinatown-bus-with-wings model, I was served surf and turf on a flight from San Diego to Denver. I guess they were in hot competition with Continental and United at Denver at the time, and chose to differentiate themselves with service.

username

I used to really enjoy airline food (even in Y) and I think that changed starting the early 90s.

I remember once I was refunded the fare difference (on a discounted fare) by UA at check-in, without asking, because the fare has dropped.

The nickling and diming is a lot more severe now.

All that said, flying is safer now (excluding terrorism and unethical manufacturers like Boeing) + all the IT related advances (information available to passengers, AVOD, connectivity in-flight) and that is progress.

Frequent Flyer Status thing is good for those who have it and bad for those who don't have it.

LAX_AUS_DL_FLYER

As a kid in the 1990s, I always enjoyed AA meals at dinner going to the Caribbean via MIA and SJU from EWR in Y. They had a cheese lasagna dish a warm side of bread that would be totally unimaginable to be served in Y on a 2.5 hour flight even in F these days. I remember I really hated airline food in Y after flying on CO way too many times back in the day but AA changed that. Y meals on CO domestically changed very little from the 1990s to when they were discontinued in the late 2000s. UA always had fairly comprehensive food in Y as well. Even Choice Menu these days is pretty good compared to the competition.

dilanesp

That was a different Frontier. The current airline shares only the name. The earlier Frontier went out of business.

I flew the old Frontier once in the 1980's, and yes, they were a high service airline.

dilanesp

I have come to the belief that UA's international Y and transcontinental Y+ meals are highly underrated around these parts. Obviously, it's Y food, so you don't have high expectations, but almost everything I have had recently has been delicious- mains including omelettes, pancakes, chicken sausage, chicken orzo pasta, orange chicken, and beef soba nuoodles, some tasty rice and vegetable sides and quinoa salads, and desserts including yummy brownies and ice cream. In other words, when they still do feed you, it's quite quite good- sometimes actually better than some of the UA meals I had in the 1980's and 1990's. (I especially remember the gooey egg sandwich breakfasts on morning transcon flights back in the day, which were awful and the predecessors of the hated Jeff McMuffin.)

eng3

OK, going off topic slightly, its been a few years since I've had an intl Y meal, though I have had a transcon Y+ meal in the past year and I am assuming they are similar. Maybe it is just me, but everytime I eat one of those meals, my stomach does not agree with it, meaning my body doesnt want to digest it and it screws me up for about 24hrs. If I stick to just eating the fruit, dessert, roll, rice, then its fine. The ones I remember most specifically is "chicken teriyaki" and "beef noodles". I also remember getting a chicken or pasta choice but they put so much sauce everything is submerged and it is basically a soup. I remember literally receiving this frozen once, there were actually ice crystals all over the tray. I've never had any digestive issues with the J or F meals. In terms of breakfast, whether Y or F, I have always thought it is UA's worst meal. When I think back to the Y meals I had when I was a kid, I don't remember this problem and I have memories of enjoying those meals. So maybe it's just my experiences but I found the quality of the meals in the past to be better than now. Even in the past 10 years, I seem to recall getting ice cream on longer flights in F. I just received an F meal the other day with an empty bowl where there use to be more food. So to me, the foo has gotten worse.

Adelphos

I came to this thread late - this is a very basic question, but what was the business model for airlines in the 1980s that allowed them to fly half full, widebody planes with the level of service these flights seemed to have? I know tickets were more expensive, but it would seem that demand was also lower. Was CASM so low that the airlines could afford it? Were airline companies subsidized?

WineCountryUA

Prices were higher, price competition did not really start in earnest until 80's (deregulation occurred 1978), the pattern of repeated airline bankruptcies started in the later 80's and continuing into the 90's and early 2000's

So the post-deregulation airlines business models were failures (bankruptcies).

A318neo

Short answer, NO.

Early 80's, UA's hubs were not yet developed. SFO-IAH, only 1 flight per day.

By the mid 80's, it was better. One year, there was triple miles.

WineCountryUA

IAH was not a UA "hub" until 2011/12.
Hubs were primarily a post-80's concept, in the pre-deregulation days and most of the 80's, it was mostly point-to-point system in the USA.

A318neo

SFO was a UA hub. However, it didn't have spokes everywhere. One example was Houston, where there was one noon-ish flight to IAH and one 7 am-ish flight IAH-SFO.

In the early 1980's, there were some hubs. DL-ATL, NW-MSP, UA-SFO, DEN.ORD; CO-IAH, TW-STL, etc.

By the late 1980's, there were some risky hubs that didn't survive past the early 90's. Examples include Dayton, Nashville, Indianapolis.

dilanesp

There were definitely hubs even in the early 1980's. Alaska had one in Seattle, United had them at O'Hare and the old Denver airport, Continental had one in Denver too, and TWA had one in St. Louis.

Airlines weren't as aggressively hub and spoke in those days- for instance, UA has flown LAX-SEA for a very long time even though back in the day it didn't have a hub in either airport- but the concept of an airline hub dates back a very, very long time.

Airlines used to lose lots of money, except on a few prestige routes. A lot of airlines were in and out of bankruptcy several times, there were tons of mergers and purchases, etc.

moondog

I was pretty young in the 80s, but I definitely recall the following hubs:
-DL in ATL and DFW
-EA in ATL and maybe DCA
-CO in IAH, DEN, and EWR (after it acquired PE)
-AA in ORD, DFW, MIA, and SJU
-UA in ORD and DEN
-US in PIT, PHL, and BWI
-TW in STL

I didn't get west of the Rockies much back then, but I believe the west coast airlines at the time also had hubs.

ETA: I also recall that MCI was a hub, but I can't remember the specific airline. Maybe EA?