Yaddablahblah

That was a regular route for me around the same time. Service was better then but food wasn’t. I remember always forgetting the awful bacon wrapped chicken livers (I think) for breakfast until I would bite into it and relive the experience all over again.

Also, the 747 seats in first were much worse than any current lie flats, although it’s hard to explain to people how unique it was to sit in the nose of that plane. But I do recall global first in UA 777s from that era having excellent lie flats on flights between SFO and LHR.

uanj

Did UA ever fly PDX-NRT? I think maybe that was DL. UA fought for years to get international service and finally got rights from SEA to NRT, SEL and HKG if I recall correctly. Early 80s. My first UA flight ever was HKG-SEA. in 83 I believe. UA even had an International First Class Lounge in SEA but I don't remember when it opened, it may have been later. I seem to remember UA's approval to buy the Pan AM Pacific division was contingent on dropping their SEA routes but later UA added SEA-NRT and SEA-LHR.

And back to the original discussion. Back in the 80s the international FC food and beverage was much better than today. The chateaubriand carved on a cart next to your seat allowed you to choose how well done and it was really excellent. The wines were very good. On the other hand, the seats were nowhere near as good as today and even in FC you had someone stepping over you if you were in an aisle seat. Business class was kind of similar in comfort to domestic FC today. The airport lounges back then were not remotely close to Polaris lounges today. Most were inherited from PA and were packed around flight times.

All in all, I think today's travel experience is far better than the 80s. There is no question that there are far more people traveling today compared to back then so the feeling of exclusivity just isn't there any more. As for manners, I am surprised how polite people are in US supermarkets compared to being on a plane. Maybe it is the stress of travel .

JimInOhio

NW pro-actively banned smoking in 1986(?). It was banned by US legislated maybe around 1989.

Bear96

I was a UA F/A once upon a time. I seem to remember that internationally it was phased out by country. For a time it was banned except for Italy and Japan flights (early / mid 90s?), I guess because those countries still had more of a smoking culture than others by then, but then of course it was ultimately banned everywhere.

UA_Flyer

Rack of lamb, Chateaubriand, caviar with vodka, appetizer sorbet, salad made to order, lobster bisque were just some of the items in the international first class menu during the 90s.

Services were great, planes were newer, and PMUA had the largest 747 fleet in the world around the mid-90s. All infra-Asia flights were flown with the mix of 741,742 and 744. NRT was a massive hub with a magnificent sight of a fleet of UA 747s in the middle of the afternoon. There were a couple of DC-10s at NRT doing one of the 3X NRT daily services to HNL. I remember the following services out of NRT each day on the 747s : 2xLAX, 2xSFO, ORD, EWR, JFK, 2xICN, PEK, SHA, TPE, SIN, HKG, GUM, SPN and BKK. Second ORD flight was added towards the late 90s but later replaced with IAD. Second LAX was replaced with SEA.

International RCC lounges were not as good as the current United Clubs, but I did enjoy the RCC at the old HKG airport with a beautiful view of runway and skyline in the background (former Pam Am Lounge), and the RCC at LHR T3 was not bad either. There were also RCC at SIN, FRA, CDG and TPE (IIRC).

RCC at MIA in the F Concourse was the best in the system. MIA was my hometown at the time when UA operated a mix of 747s (later 777s) and 767s between MIA and all domestic hubs and MIA and all of its Latin America destinations at the time (with the exception of LIM was on the 757). I remembered flown a 747SP (came from San Paulo earlier in the morning) between MIA and SFO and then connected onto a brand new 744 to HKG in 1992.

Speaking of HKG, there were four flights out of HKG in that era: 2xHKG, 1XLAX (744 with 36F and 120+ C seats for a period of time) and 1xNRT. The second SFO flight left HKG between 6 and 7 pm in the evening. HKG was later included as part of the RTW services with a daily 763 flight to/from DEL (Replaced with a 744 when moved the current HKG airport).

Seats, IFEs and amenity bags are better now than those days. International First Class and Connoisseur Class (Business Class at the time) were often not full. Upgrades were not given as often as today. The company I was working for at the time had a pretty big contract with a DC based travel agency, and the TA got upgrades through United for us. However those upgrades were mostly used for upgrades from C to F. Upgrades from Y to C were rare at the time.

Transcon flights were often on 757/767/DC-10s with two meal services. I remembered those deli item (smoke salmon, shrimp cocktail, ham, roast beef, turkey slices, juicy beefy tomato slices) served on the cart and custom plated in front of you based on your choices. My first ever United flight was on a DC-10 from LGA to DEN in 1992 when I just entered the job market after leaving grad school.

A lot of good memories in the past 27 years and I am on my way to become a 5 MM flyer with no end in sight. One thing that has not changed is the IAD C/D concourses. It was in a sad state then as it is today. Now my daughter has just finished college and started flying for work out of IAD, and I told her that C/D will probably stay the same when she retires.

Here are a few photos:

GregoryGardner

Even the domestic smoking ban was phased in. First, smoking was banned on flights shorter than two hours, then, a few years later, smoking was banned on domestic flights shorter than 6 hours. There was so much hand-wringing and concern from airlines that they were going to lose a huge chunk of their customer base, which turned out to be not happen at all. I guess one thing that hasn't changed is the difficulty in predicting consumer behavior.

Superjeff

depended on the route and the load. I flew HNL-ORD once in Y on Northwest (a Boeing 707-351C, if you're interested) and they brought out the steak dinner individually, as well as the desert. Salad, cutlery, etc was on the single tray. On the same route, United served everything on one tray, but seating on their DC8-62 jets was 2-3 in Y (only on a handful of those airplanes, which were deployed HNL-ORD, HNL-JFK (yes, they flew it then!), and, for a while, HNL-BWI). (They had 2-3 seat sets available from the early '60's when United tried a "One Class Standard Service" instead of F&Y, which was a major flop. But vastly superior to today's service (of course fares were higher, adjusted for inflation as well, though).

dilanesp

Smokers are a lot like serious drinkers. They are addicts. Addicts always believe that it will be the end of the world if they are deprived of their fix.

Obviously some are bigger addicts than others- which is why tampering with a lavatory smoke detector is a federal offense!

But when the smoking ban went down, a lot of smokers thought they would never be able to fly again and told the airlines that. And there WERE bankruptcies back then, so who knows, it may have hurt the airlines.

Superjeff

Yes, there were lot of bankruptcies in the first five or six years after deregulation, including a couple of Trunk carriers. The first big one was Braniff in May, 1982, and later, Continental in the fall of that year. But a lot of the reason was, IMHO, a couple of tangential issues: The Iran situation which resulted in a massive increase in the cost of oil, plus a belief by the smaller U.S. trunk carriers in particular (European and Asian carriers were still largely government controlled at the time, and operations regulated) that they had to grow, and grow quickly, to survive. Braniff, Continental, National, and Western, in particular, were faced with major operational issues. Braniff is gone, Continental went through two bankruptcies in the 1980's, National eventually was acquired by Pan Am, and Western by Delta. Had nothing to do with smoking. BTW, I understand that the airlines discovered that their maintenance costs actually were lowered by the smoking ban, because the nicotine apparently caused problems with the rubber seals around doors and windows.

CurbedEnthusiasm

In premium cabins, it's never been a better time to fly. In coach, it's a different story. Half empty wide-body planes ruled the skies and there was nothing close to the cramped feeling of a 10-abreast 777 or 9-abreast 787 on a long haul flight. Tickets were a lot more expensive so travelers tended to be more sophisticated; I don't remember much antisocial behavior like nail clipping or music without headphones like I run into nowadays. Flying was a privilege and people dressed up and treated it like an experience. However, the average person can now afford to travel all over the world which is a huge plus. Even in the mid-90s coach tickets from the US to Europe were regularly about $1500, and just like now we were complaining about how bad the food and service was.

seat38a

Actually, nothing is as bad as a 10-abreast DC-10. Was on one on AOM French Airlines. Was THE MOST miserable experience still to this day.

dilanesp

ATA used to fly 10-across all coach L1011's to Hawaii at 100 percent load factors. They were famously awful.

People stopped dressing up to fly before I started in the late 1970's. As for the rest, I don't think you can look at the 10 abreast 777's or 9 abreast 787's in isolation. There are also better premium economy products and far, far better inflight entertainment. Plus overhead bins are a lot bigger.

I will admit the question is closer in economy class, but I still think I'd rather fly now.

Obviously there were other causes of airline bankruptcies. Airlines actually always lost money until very recently when the major remaining carriers got it together.

But that doesn't mean the smoking ban may not have contributed or that airlines weren't right about this. It's very possible that some smokers stopped flying- having been around heavy smokers, they really can't make it several hours. It wouldn't surprise me if a number of them started traveling by land rather than air after the ban.

STS-134

I think I flew one of those as a kid. Shortly after was when my mom banned my dad from ever buying tickets on ATA again. I'm really not sure what they were trying to accomplish because they lost us as customers forever. We never flew them again until the day they went bankrupt.

seat38a

The middle seat on DC-10's with 9-abreast wasn't a joy either on United from what I hear. Those had the 2-5-2 configuration which was standard for US carriers I believe.

Superjeff

it was. But when the DC10 and L1011 first came out, they were generally 8 abreast in the back. The airlines soon found a way to cram in an extra row of seats. 2-5-2 on most carriers, although a few (notably KLM) had a 2-4-3 configuration.

A few carriers (Pan Am and Cathay Pacific) actually flew L10's in a 10 across configuration, which must have been absolutely miserable. Fortunately, I never had the opportunity to find out.