What was the ‘Golden Age’ of flying like?

(CNN) — Cocktail lounges, five-course meals, caviar from ice sculptures and an endless flow of champagne: life on airplanes was very different during the “golden age of travel” from the 1950s to the 1970s, which is remembered for its charm. and luxury.

In the year It coincided with the dawn of the jet age, with aircraft such as the de Havilland Comet, Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 being used for the first scheduled transatlantic service in the 1950s, before the introduction of the Queen. Sky, Boeing 747, 1970. So what was it like to be there?

“At that time, air travel was something special,” says aviation historian and author Graham M. Simmons. “It was luxurious. It was smooth. It was fast.

“That’s why people were wearing it. The crew were actually wearing scrubs. And there was a lot more space: the pitch – the distance between the seats on the plane – was maybe 36 to 40 inches. Now it’s down to 28, a lot of people on board.” When it gets crowded.”

Golden age

The Sunday Roast was designed by BOAC VC10 in 1964 for first class passengers.

Airline: Style at 30,000 feet/Keith Lovegrove

With passenger numbers much smaller than today and fares too expensive for anyone but the wealthy, airlines weren’t worried about installing more seats, but more amenities.

“Their airlines marketed their flights as luxury transportation,” Simmons added.

“So there were sleeping areas and there could be four, five, even six-course meals. Olympic Airlines had gold-plated cutlery in the first-class cabins.

“Some American airlines had fashion shows to entertain passengers. At one point, there was talk of putting baby grand pianos on the plane to provide entertainment.”

Like Christian Dior, Chanel and Pierre Balmain worked with Air France, Olympic Airways and Singapore Airlines respectively to design staff uniforms.

Being a flight attendant — or steward, as they were called until the 1970s — was a dream job.

“Flight attendants look like rock stars as they carry their bags and walk through the terminal in slow motion,” says Keith Lovegrove, author of “Airlines: Style at 30,000 Feet.” It was beautiful or beautiful.”

Most of the passengers tried to follow suit.

Relaxed attitude

Pan American World Airways is probably the airline most associated with the ‘Golden Age’.

Ivan Dimitri/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

“It was like going to a cocktail party. We had shirts and ties and jackets, which seems ridiculous now, but was expected back then,” said Lovegrove, who started flying with his family as a child in the 1960s. Class seats when his father worked in the airline industry.

“When we fly on a jumbo jet, the first thing my brother and I do is climb the spiral staircase to the top floor and sit in the cocktail lounge.”

“This is the generation where you can smoke cigarettes and drink free alcohol on board.

“I don’t want to put anyone in trouble but when we were young we were served sherry before dinner, then champagne and then indigestion afterwards, all under the drinking age.

“There was an incredible sense of freedom even though you were stuck in this loft for a few hours.”

According to Lovegrove, this relaxed attitude extends to security as well.

“It was very small,” he says. “We once flew a pet bird from England to the Middle East that my mother took as hand luggage in a shoebox.

She punched two holes in the top so the little bird could breathe, and when our three-course meal arrived, she took the salad out of the prawn cocktail and placed it over the holes. The bird licked him. Security-wise, I don’t think you can get out of here today.

‘Flawless Service’

A Pan Am flight attendant serves champagne in the first class cabin of a Boeing 747 jet.

Tim Graham/Getty Images

The airline often associated with the golden age of travel was Pan Am, the original operator of the Boeing 707 and 747 and the industry leader in transoceanic routes at the time.

“My career with Pan Am was an adventure from the day I started,” says Joan Policastro, a former flight attendant who worked with the airline from 1968 until it was dissolved in 1991.

“There was no comparison between a Pan Am flight and any other airline. Everyone was watching it.

The food was amazing and the service was impeccable. In the first class we had snow swans where we served caviar and Paris Maxim [a renowned French restaurant] He prepared our food.

Policastro recalls how passengers would come to the front lounge of first class after the meal service.

“Most of the time, we’re sitting there chatting with our passengers. Passengers today don’t even pay attention to who’s on the plane, but back then it was a more social and polite experience,” Policastro says. He worked as a flight attendant with Delta before retiring in 2019.

Susie Smith, a Pan Am flight attendant since 1967, recalls sharing moments with passengers in the lounge, including celebrities such as actors Vincent Price and Raquel Welch, anchor Walter Cronkite and Princess Grace of Monaco.

The world of luxury

In 1955, travelers were served a buffet aboard the Lockheed Super Constellation when they flew with former American airline TransWorld Airlines (TWA).

Mondadori via Getty Images

The upstairs lounge on the Boeing 747 was eventually replaced by a dining room.

“We put the tables on the tables. It was fantastic,” says Smith. “People couldn’t sit there to take off and land, but they went upstairs to eat dinner. After a while, they removed the dining room and put first-class seats there.”

First class service was restaurant worthy.

“We started with canapés and then went out with a cart that included beluga caviar and foie gras,” she said. “After that we had a cart with a big salad bowl and we mixed it ourselves before serving.

“Then there was a roast, like chateaubriand or lamb or roast beef, and it literally came in on the plane and we cooked it in the galley.

“We took it out on another cart and paraded it down the aisle. In addition to that, we had at least five other entrées, a cheese and fruit cart and a dessert cart. And we served them either Crystal or Dom Perignon champagne.”

Economically, things weren’t too bad either.

“Food came in aluminum pans on the plane and we would cook it and cook it all,” Smith says. “The trays were big and they came with real glasses.

“If we had a breakfast flight, they’d have raw eggs on board and we’d cut them in a silver terrine and beat them and melt the butter and cook them with sausages or whatever we had.”

Dressed to the nines, passengers also didn’t have much carry-on luggage.

“When I first started, there was no such thing as a tire on a suitcase,” Smith added. “We always check them, then we have a carry-on bag in the boat.

“There were no overhead bins either. The only things you could put in there were coats and hats. People only brought one suitcase, which fit under the seat.”

Not everything was perfect. Smoking was allowed on board, much to the chagrin of flight attendants, filling the cabins, but was gradually banned from the 1980s.

Remember with love

A first-class ‘Slumberette’ on the Lockheed Constellation in the early 1950s.

Airline: Style at 30,000 feet/Keith Lovegrove

Many airlines had strict physical requirements for hiring flight attendants, who had to stay slim or be fired.

Safety was nowhere near what it is today: In the U.S., for example, there were 5,196 total accidents in 1965 compared to 1,220 in 2019, and a fatality rate of 6.15 per 100,000 flight hours compared to 1.9, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. .

Hijackings were common: more than 50 in 1969 alone. Fares were also very high. According to Simmons, a transatlantic flight ticket in the early 1960s cost about $600, which is $5,800 in today’s money.

Still, nostalgia abounds, and Pan Am in particular is still fondly remembered as the pinnacle of the air travel experience.

The airline It folded in 1991, the golden age long dead after deregulation in favor of less glamorous, but more accessible commercial aviation from the 1980s.

It survives through organizations that connect former employees of the company, such as the former Pan Am Flight Attendants Benevolent Association, of which WorldWings, Smith & Policastro are members.

“Pan Am was a cut above the rest. We always had great uniforms. They didn’t try to treat us like sex objects. And the work was really hard, but we were treated like royalty,” Smith says.

“We had a great time every vacation. We had many adventures.”