Friendly Sky's

With all the recent nonsense in the news with the Airlines, all I can saw is WOW...how things have changed..got to thinking I'm a little happy and sad at what is going on..happy I got to fly back when it really was the Friendly Sky's and sad that my grandchildren and their children, will most likely never experience that..back then flying was an event, something special, some thing you looked forward too. People got dressed up, don't remember anybody wearing pajamas, shorts, baggy pants, or hanging pants off your backside (eyes rolling), hair in curlers, etc... and folks talked to each other and generally had a good time. The airline treated people like gold, the crew was attentive, you got free pillows, free snacks, free food. The crew helped you get your things into the overhead bin. Of course you had to walk out to the plane, remember them days, your relatives could come onto the plane to see you off...lol..very different from the "get'm on..get'm there..get'm off" mentality of today, any thing remotely of comfort cost extra money, no body talks to you, except the flight attendant telling you ..you can't do this or that...people dressing like they just got out of bed, or just came in from the camping grounds, dirty, smelly...well you get the picture. You have to wonder how big would the Air industry be today if they started out like it is today.


When I joined the Navy back in 1974 at the tender age of 17, there were six of us flying out of Little Rock Arkansas going to boot camp in Orlando Florida. They flew us there in a 747, we were super excited, so much fun. We got to use the NEW boarding ramps, no walking out to the flight lines for us...lol..for all of us this was the coolest thing ever. Shortly after take off, the stewardess, yes they weren't flight attendants then, came by with free beers, she knew we were sailors, she also knew three of us were only 17, didn't care, nor did any one else....lol..and yes the crew actually knew who was on their planes back then, the Captain, ex Navy pilot and the First Officer ex Marine pilot, invited us to the flight deck. With beers in hand all six of us heading up there, it was a tight fit, but we all got in there. We talked for quite awhile, since I was going into radar systems, the Captain showed us the planes radar and explained it all to us. To this day it one of my fondest memories...so sad that these days none of what I just relayed to you could happen, those days are gone for sure. Not all progress good, might be safer, and that is debatable, but personally I prefer the way it used to be...

I hear ya, Mark. The times, they have certainly changed. I flew a lot during the sixties, seventies and eighties and had some scary landings, but never an unpleasant experience with crew members or other passengers. My missus had to fly several times with three very young children while I was off in unfriendly places. She has fond memories of helpful flight attendants and air crew. One time when she had to quickly walk the tarmac to transfer planes or miss connections, the captain helped her down the steps, carrying one baby while a stewardess carried the other baby and diaper bag. They walked her over to the other plane and made sure she was settled in. We haven't flown since '92. Things sure are different nowadays.....not in a good way.

Ain't amazing how times have changed? Or rather how people have changed. I went in the Marines a few years before Mark. Flew to boot camp on American and back on 10 day leave on Delta. Both were pleasant flights I suppose. The flight to boot camp was my first. If I wasn't heading to Marine boot camp I might have enjoyed it more. After Nam I was based in Hawaii for a little while and flew to DFW on a non stop Braniff 747. That was flying. All kinds of room and friendly. After that I flew a lot of commercial on a govt. credit card as an investigator for DoD. Of my 26 years that's what I did for the last 20. Northwest Airlines was never on time. Friendly, but always late. Eastern was always horrible. I think their flight crews were all hags and ogres. Delta was OK. American was OK. United as just so so. And, on and on and on. But, I haven't flow in a long time and have no desires to anymore than I was to get on a sardine packed cruise ship. Why things have changed is anybody's guess. Some will say blame it on 9-11. Some will say Homeland Security. Instead of blaming someone else, they might want to take a look at themselves. Ya think? I don't know.

I flew for the Air Force 1973-1994. After that I taught aeronautical science classes at the university level - undergrad and grad classes. I taught a class in Air Transportation and another in Aviation Legislation. Together you could get a pretty good picture of the history of aviation and the airlines from the beginning. They started out hauling cargo, then mail. Those were profitable. They had to be forced to add room for passengers in order to get mail contracts. Cargo didn't whine or throw up.

The airlines became a regulated industry that operated on a certificate of public necessity & convenience like a utility or a railroad. This was great for the airlines. The government limited competition and guaranteed they would make a profit. Only so many carriers were allowed to fly each route. Everyone had to charge the same price for the flight. If the airlines wanted new aircraft, they told the government and the price of tickets went up. If a union wanted a raise, they told the government and the price went up. The only way the airlines differentiated themselves from another was in the realm of service. Like Dave, I flew Braniff a lot. They had the best looking stews with the shortest skirts (weren't the 60s and 70s great). Their uniforms were designed by Halston.

Then in 1978, they were deregulated. They'd been regulated for 40 years and they got spoiled. The government decided they were a mature industry and they could act like they were. Some embraced market forces and made business decisions that made them succeed. Some (like Braniff) decided this would never last, the government would step in again and regulate them and life would be good, but in the interim, they would buy new airplanes and expand their routes so when regulation returned, they would have more territory. Braniff expanded into South America, but they didn't have enough passengers to pay for the new jets. It got to the point that no one would accept their credit cards for gas. Captains carried a suitcase full of money to buy gas for cash. Finally, the message went out to leave the aircraft locked up wherever they landed and find their own way home. Braniff was no more. They weren't the only ones, just one of the worst stories. Eastern was bought and sold off for parts. It was an ugly time.

Finally, they decided this was really here to stay and they started making more business-like decisions. 9/11 provided a great opportunity to make tough decisions. They cut the number of flights to each destination in order to put more people on each aircraft. They instituted the hub & spoke system (created by Delta) to funnel passengers from small markets into hubs where they could be crowded onto larger aircraft to make it efficient to fly. Flight attendants that started as nurses in the 20s became fight coordinators. They had to sue OSHA and the FAA to get someone to cover their occupational injuries because no one wanted the job.

Today, passengers are considered to be self loading cargo. It didn't pay to haul a 50 lb suitcase for free. In its place they could haul 50 lb of paying cargo or 50 lb of jet fuel. So they started charging for bags. When they were still serving food, one airline saved over $1 million just going from 4 olives on a salad to 3. When fuel prices were at their highest, no airline made a profit. Today, they are all profitable. They fly full (thanks to overbooking). You haul your own bags. You bring your own food. You pay high prices (especially if you are a business traveler) to be treated this way most of the time. One European airline is talking about tripling the price of tickets to make it so flying was only for the rich again. Hasn't hit this country yet, but it probably will.

I haven't flown in 10 years I'd guess. It's just not worth the hassle and I never was good at saying 'moooooooo".

I used to fly all around the country (and a few international destinations) quite a bit for work during the '90s. Rode most of the major carriers at the time, but it seems I was on United more often than any of the others. They were OK then...I had no real complaints. The one time I was stranded overnight (in Chicago, due to mechanical problems) they put me up in a hotel and bought me dinner. One of the best was Air New Zealand, who flew me to Sydney. It was originally booked on Quantas, but they had mechanical issues, so they rebooked me on another carrier. After a mad dash across LAX to catch my plane, it was a great flight. My business travel pretty much came to an abrupt end when I broke my back, two days before 9/11. Worked out pretty good for me, as it turned out, lol. Since then the only commercial flights I've been on were with Southwest, and I've never had any complaints about their service. Yes, it's cattle car travel, but with Southwest, you expect that, and they generally do it efficiently and in a friendly manner. The TSA, on the other hand...don't get me started. CoC and all that.

I did get a chance to commute between Burbank and Las Vegas daily for a week on the boss's new plane, a nicely-appointed Gulfstream IV. We had two pilots (cockpit visits were allowed) and a flight attendant who made sure we had fresh snacks and non-alcoholic drinks. (No booze allowed on the boss's plane.) It cost the company less money to shuttle about 12 of us back and forth daily for a trade show than to fly us there on a commercial carrier and pay for hotel rooms and meals for all of us for a week. That was they way to travel. Drive your car through the private gate at the airport, pull up to the door, and then a valet took it and parked it in a nearby hangar. Walk from there into the waiting room or directly onto the plane (depending on if you were early.) No security check (I had my pocket knife and a Leatherman with me each day). And fast flight, too. It took less than an hour from getting on the plane to getting on the shuttle that was waiting to take us to the trade show. Coming home was easier than some LA commutes. We could leave the show at 4:30 in the afternoon and be back in our cars in Burbank before 6:00.)

I worked for an airlines, TWA, from 1965 until 1976. I started with them in their dining unit in Los Angeles washing dishes. In those days the first class section was served on real china dishes, monogrammed with TWA's RA logo (Royal Ambassador service), real crystal glasses and actual silverware. in the dining unit we washed and stacked those real dishes for each flight making sure that we had service for every first class passenger. The coach section used plastic similar to Melmac, but still had real metal silverware.


In the food section of the dining unit, we had gourmet chefs that planned the meals, the cooks cut and prepared the entree's carefully so that were both appetizing and appetizing looking. My first promotion was into the food section where I made salads, real lettuce and real tomatoes sliced and proportioned to the plates.

My second promotion was to the ramp where I loaded and unloaded cargo and baggage. We were timed on how long it took to turn a flight, often meaning we went through the baggage compartment suit case by suitcase to ensure we didn't miss a piece that was scheduled off... we had one flight that arrived from St. Louis that invariably would have 50-100 75 to 80 lb duffle bags stacked neatly like logs across the baggage compartment... we had to move every bag from one side of the bay to the other, check the tag for LAX bags and re-stack the SFO bags as the flight went on to SF.... we had 20 or 30 minutes to do this and to load the origin bags... it was a major error if a bag got left on the flight and the passenger arrived without his bag. We had a clerk in baggage claim to help locate a lost bag and often we would start an all stations trace to find one.

I flew a number of times non-rev on vacation on several of the carriers. My dad lived in Texas and TWA didn't fly to Texas at that time... I used American, Continental, Delta, and Braniff... Delta was my favorite, but under non-rev regs I could only fly an off-line carrier once per year. Delta always put employees in first class if there was space, if not, they apologized for having to fly coach.

I never worked the passenger side of the carrier, except to handle the baggage, but my third promotion was to cargo agent where I handled cargo and the paperwork associated with it... by the early '70's cargo had become secondary and passengers was the focus of most airlines, except Flying Tigers and Seaboard who never flew passengers... there was a priority list for carriers that read, Passengers, AOG's (Aircraft on Ground (parts)), REA air express(back in those days we still had railway express), air mail, green mail (first class mail), Cargo. We rarely ever left cargo behind.

When the airlines industry wanted to change a rate, for passengers or for cargo, they filed a motion with the CAB and other carriers... if TWA changed a rate on a particular route, and another carrier flew that route, they had to agree on the rate change, we then waited 30 days from the filing before the tariff change could take effect. One of my extra curricular jobs when I was a junior agent was keeping tariffs up to date... every carrier had their own CAB tariff and we were constantly changing pages as rates changed... I think it was a whole industry just to keep the tariffs printed, mailed out and up to date. My tariff rack fit the whole length of a standard office desk, almost 5 feet wide.

When President Reagan was elected and started talking about de-regulation, you could see the hand writing on the walls... things began to change almost immediately.

Vaughn McMillan said:

Drive your car through the private gate at the airport, pull up to the door, and then a valet took it and parked it in a nearby hangar. Walk from there into the waiting room or directly onto the plane (depending on if you were early.) No security check (I had my pocket knife and a Leatherman with me each day). And fast flight, too. It took less than an hour from getting on the plane to getting on the shuttle that was waiting to take us to the trade show. Coming home was easier than some LA commutes. We could leave the show at 4:30 in the afternoon and be back in our cars in Burbank before 6:00.)

Click to expand...

Yep what you just describe minus the valet parking is basically the way flying commercially back in the 60's and 70's was..lol...during "A" school after boot camp I was in Great lakes Ill. late 1974 early 1975 I flew home (Little Rock AR) most weekends and usually got to the airport about 15 or 20 min before my flight, granted only had carry on luggage, but still things sure moved along much better and I seen all kinds of stuff being brought onto the plane, including one guy with Samurai Sword..lol...TSA would have needed medical help back then, they would have lost their minds....wonder when they will decide that private jets need to be screened too, can't be far off

This thread is turning into a pretty episode for the history channel...lol... learning a great deal about the airline industry I didn't know...lol...young folks should pay attention, but also good for old folks like me to see how an industry as a whole can run down a rabbit hole like it has...when you look at it as a whole, you see that the nonsense going on now, are RESULTS of actions taking earlier in history, not surprising