Was commercial air travel really ever anything but horrid?
As the flying experience has deteriorated, more of us have subjected ourselves to it
By Tim Townsend and Christopher Dang
The assurances Lockheed made potential passengers for the unveiling of its L-1011 TriStar — when less than half of US adults had flown commercially — sounded pretty great. They sound even greater today.
The L-1011 TriStar was going to “pamper the people, not just deliver them somewhere. And a bevy of charming hostesses will keep the service fast and fabulous.”
The 1969 Life ad promised something the airlines soon took back: space. “Space for moving about, relaxing. Space for comfort, services and conveniences new to the skies. Space for wide-screen movies.” And the “below-deck kitchen,” it boasted, “will serve up meals to make you compliment the chef.”
Lockheed predicted that “the great vacation boom is coming,” Boy, was it right. A new survey by an American airline trade group found that the year Lockheed introduced the L-1011 TriStar, just over 1 in 5 Americans flew a commercial airline. Last year it was nearly half of us. And today more than 8 in 10 Americans have flown commercially.
The company’s prediction that the airliner would become the cruise ship of the future was less accurate. Maybe they didn’t know the term “cattle car” in 1971?
