Flying, Back Then...

I started flying on business back in the early 70's.  And when I did there was a high likelihood the seat next to me would be empty.  On either side.

In fact, there was a very great chance half the plane would be empty.  And that the half-filled half would be wearing suits.  No shorts, no T-shirts, no flip-flops.  Because it cost a bundle to fly.  That was before the Gubmint forced the leaders of the airlines to stop getting together in the bathroom and colluding to fix their fares.  So that more of the public could participate.  Prior to which it had been the province of the Upper-Middle Class and wealthy vacationers.  Plus corporate representatives.  And politicians.  Plus Big Ticket salesmen selling Big Ticket items.  

Like me.

I recall it costing $405.00 to fly from Lost Angeles (before it was "Lost") to New Yawk City back then.  Back when you could walk down the streets of either city and expect to still be alive when you finished your stroll.  To not be mugged, or knifed, or robbed, or shot.  Or their current favorite, carjacking.    

And you can just imagine what $405 in today's money would buy (that was five decades ago!).  Because $405 factoring for inflation is worth $2,400 today!  And I flew round-trip LAX-NYC more than 100 times during my 7 years of steady air travel.  

That works out to about 3 months in the air.  

I wound up being appointed the International Sales Manager for a medical equipment manufacturer.  And the World was my Territory.  As well as my oyster.  I not only had to fly everywhere to put together and manage a sales team, I had to then visit foreign countries to set up distributorships.  So my corporation issued me an "Air Travel Card," the-then credit card good for all airlines.  You just flashed that red card (making Gold Card holders green with envy) and stepped aboard.  And during the period 1976 - 1983, I averaged, averaged, $6,200 a month in air travel.

And that's not counting rental car expenses (one car for every flight), nor all the thousands of hotel/motel rooms (one room for every flight).  Nor meals and incidentals (2 or 3 meals for every flight).    

That's a lot of flying!  That's a lot of Hertz!  That's a lot of Holiday Inn!

I travelled so much I recall asking a wake-up call operator one morning where I was?  She said, "The Holiday Inn, sir."  And since they all looked the same back then, I said, "Okay, thanks for that, but give me a clue.  Which state?"

When you fly for a living, you get confused sometimes about where you are.  As if it matters.  It's like "muscle memory."  You just plod through the motions until "go time."  That's when you get in front of your potential customer, after that bushel basket of somebody's money you just spent to get there, and try and close the deal.  All the flying and driving and eating and sleeping is incidental to that sales call.  

A very expensive sales call... 

In fact, I averaged a plane a day for years!  And that's not those one-stop, take-off-and-landing-and-take-off-again, continuing flights.  That's different planes and different flight numbers.  In fact, there was one 24-hour period during which I flew on 5 separate planes to five separate destinations.  Columbus, OH at 5:15 a.m., to Cleveland, then on to Chicago, IL.  From there I flew just across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario.  I then taught an 8-hour class at the University of Ontario to a room full of PharmD candidates on "The Theories, Principles and Practical Applications of Sorbent Hemodialysis Science."  Then a 6:00 p.m. flight back to Chicago, then to Louisville, KY, and on to Lexington.  All within 24-hours.  

Oh yeah, and that last leg, that Louisville to Lexington?  Yeah, that included flying around a tornado and suffering the terrors of an emergency landing.      

Oh yeah, if you're keeping score, I lived.  My kids are surely happy about that...  

And how about this: I started one Monday morning having a bizz lunch on the Space Needle in Seattle; then toured the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas on Tuesday; had dinner at famous Pitty Pat's Porch in Atlanta on Wednesday; took in the Museum of Science and Industry and Second City in Chicago on Thursday; and had a lovely dinner at Windows on the World in the Twin Towers (we should bow our heads) on Friday.  And that was just one week in the life of the pre-Chuckmeister.  

Getting up and heading off to the airport was my daily routine.  And during this period I visited 49 states and 37 countries.  Sorry, North Dakota, couldn't fit you in.

I had some favorite airlines, yes.  I recall PSA, fondly.  That was "Pacific Southwest Airways."  They flew up and down the West Coast back in the '70's and '80's.  And I flew with them from LAX to SFO and back literally dozens of times.  They were famous for catering to us mostly male business flyers.  The "stews," as they were called back then, were leggy 20-somethings in mauve and orange hot pants and skimpy tops, plus white "go-go" boots to round out the uniforms (the '70's were something, huh?  Can we go back?).  They even featured a big painted smile on the nose of their DC-9's, right under the pilot's cockpit.  

I would have flown PSA even if I had nowhere to go.  In fact, since the World was my territory, I often did just that.  Just hopped on and then started selling something to somebody when the plane landed.  'Cause no matter where the plane landed, I could do bizz...

We all know what flying's like today.  Seats that shrink right before your eyes.  Every single seat sold at least once.  You've got a guy with a comfort chicken in his lap on one side, and a 500 pound sumo wrestler, who's bathing-averse, on the other.  

Who is desperate to tell you why he's voting for RFK!

And in place of everything included in the price of a ticket, as it was an eye-blink ago, you now have to rent a blanket.    

But back then it was a pleasure!  The planes were all newer and the stewardesses were all newer, too.  And "friendly" ("wink-wink"). The 727's and 737's and 747's and DC-9's and DC-10's and L-1011's were all spotless and ready to ferry our post-War citizenry around the Country.  And the stewardesses (what they were called before we got "woke") averaged about 25 or 26 and were there to please.  Take that as you wish.  To be a stewardess back then was a yuuuge step up from jobs normally open to young women.  Remember the 3 jobs that were the province of women back then?  Secretary, nurse and teacher?  To which we then added "stewardess."  

They were all beautiful, the planes were all beautiful, and life was simply beautiful.  

And you made enough friends while flying to sometimes keep you busy even after all that flying part was over.  Ahem...

And then the Gubmint stepped in and demanded air fares be open to competition.  

These Congress-types work for us, right?  Anyway, the lowest price is the best, they said.  So the airlines had to cut out all the "fluff," which is why we chose one airline over another!  Flying went from men in suits in half-filled planes, to fully-filled planes, one-third kids, shorts and t-shirts, on their way to Disneyland.

And so the profit incentive was mostly wrung out of the equation.  Little regional carriers, like PSA, could no longer compete.  And lots of airlines either merged with a larger competitor or went broke as a result.  Trans World Airlines and Eastern Airlines and Northwest Orient and Frontier and Ozark and Southern and many others all went down in metaphoric flames.  Including, I would add, the famous "PanAmerican Airways."  The folks who started it all.  

Sort of gives one a chill down the old back, now don't it?  

But the pilots were all fresh out of Vietnam and happy as a clam to no longer be dodging gunfire.  And the stews were happy they weren't teaching wet-nose kids or taking dictation.  It was sort of like, "fly where you want, collect phone numbers of the "10's," and some "9's, and go about your business."  Until nightfall.  When everything changed.  For the better.  You were in a strange city with nothing to do.  The stewardesses were in a strange city with nothing to do.  The hotels had bars and discos to keep their visitors entertained.  So you whipped out those phone numbers.

Did I ever have a close call?  Not really.  There was this time an L-1011 I was riding in managed to lock its brakes on liftoff from St. Louis' Lindberg Field, resulting in a roaring fire.  The hydraulic fluid in the right landing gear was ablaze.  The plane did a quick 360 and we landed in foam.  No harm, no foul.  We got free drink coupons, BTW.  Sort of a big yawn.

On one other occasion of note I caught a 747 from LAX to SFO on Saturday evening.  I was the only customer on the entire plane.  16 cabin attendants (stewardesses)...and me.  Can I tell you the champagne flowed!  New friends were made!  Phone numbers were gathered!  And there was summm party at the hotel! 

So, having flown all my adult life, to 6 of the 7 continents, more than 2,000,000 miles in the air, I can say I truly enjoyed it.  In the past tense.  I would never fly again, however.  I chose years ago to no longer fight this maddening crowd.  

I will not pay to have to arrive to an airport 3 hours early.  And pay a wad of $cash to park my car.  And submit to being felt up by some 400 lb. illiterate in order to get through security, when millions are wandering across our Southern Border without such rude and disrespectful treatment.  An then be flown in a plane being hot-lapped from city to city that just might fall apart.  By an air crew and an Air Traffic Control System whose employees were all hired and trained using DEI and CRT.  

Hire the barely qualified if their skin is the right color, lease planes from the lowest bidder, and hope for the best.  I was going to say "pray," but I doubt they're familiar with that concept.

Do you really care about the skin color of your pilot?  Or that of the guy/gal/other handling your plane up there in that Air Traffic Control tower?    

So if I can't get there by car, or train, or motorcycle, or sedan chair, or on the back of a camel, I'm not going.  You do as you wish, but flying commercial today is like paying to be mistreated.  I am not a masochist!  And you shouldn't be either!  The public will get what it pays for.  If it demanded better, it would get better.  Parts falling off of airplanes?  Fights breaking out at 30,000 feet?  There's a real opportunity in the ailing airline business for some $Billionaire to start an airline that does what PSA did, way back when.  

Doubt me?  Remember what happened when JetBlue came upon the scene?  The public embraced leather seats and widebody aircraft and free wi-fi and seats designed for humans with wide backsides and being treated like we're the paying public.

What a concept!

I never flew on business in the old Soviet Union.  Or dared fate on Cuban Airlines.  Or a Chinese airline.  But having spoken to those who have, what's offered now to the American public is a pretty good representation.  I'm ashamed to say...

Old folks die off continually and they take their memories with them.  And that's a real shame, because those they leave behind will have no idea just how good it was..."back then."