Bygone era of commercial aviation

MQAAord said:
People demand $99 airfare, what the industry has become today is what they get.

They need to be elated and grateful that flying is as safe as it is.
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I wouldn't fault the consumer. The airlines were the ones that offered up the extremely low fares, even creating airlines that specialize in that. So the airlines are the consumers' partner in crime in this whole mess.
 
I say the blame is shared. Pax demand the $99 airfare and shop on Expedia for the absolute lowest fare. They bitch if a round trip transcon trip is $500! They get on the planes and want that same 50's and 60's Glory Days experience but they are not willing to pay for it.
 
MQAAord said:
I say the blame is shared. Pax demand the $99 airfare and shop on Expedia for the absolute lowest fare. They bitch if a round trip transcon trip is $500! They get on the planes and want that same 50's and 60's Glory Days experience but they are not willing to pay for it.
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But the airlines willingly offer these fares. So I don't blame the consumer 100% at all. They'll take whats offered to them.
 
I think if there was still customer loyalty to a particular brand things might be different. There doesn't seem to be any incentive to pick one over the other besides cost. The bottom line is, you get what you pay for...literally.
 
mastermags said:
The glory days of this country are behind us. Aviation is just one reflection of that.
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I don't believe that. The best days of this country are still to come...if we can get away from this entitlement mentality and get back to the values that this country was founded on.
 
In the late 1960s and early 70s I used to affordably fly as a working teenager. It ran me sometimes $15 each way between PWM and BOS on Northeast Airlines' DC9s or Executive Airlines' Twin Otters. I could afford a Summer trip from PWM to HYA on Execuive, annual trips on United between BOS and FWA via CLE to visit the grandparents each February break (paying for my own ticket). My dad traveled on business twice monthly on Mohawk from BOS to UCA. I took advantage of a couple weekend specials on Mohawk for travel to any city to which they flew for a whopping $39 - good on any flight between 6PM Friday and 6PM Sunday. It was an era when Northeast flew DC9s into EWB, FH227s into LEB and EEN, and when LEW had commercial service to PWM and BOS. There were annual Jimmy Fund flights (TWA, I think) for a penny-a-pound contribution that ran to some thirty minutes generally from take-off to landing for the fund-raiser.

I was a working teen (line boy at BEV and yardwork) from a middle class family and flying didn't seem like an extravagant luxury or tremendously expensive, if I could afford it.

I've always wondered at the change and what happened to the world that seemed so routine back then. Anyone offer insight? It couldn't be simply the fares (see above). There was airline service to Podunk and back on everything from DC9s, 727s and Bac 1-11s to Navajos and Twin Otters. Where did it go and why? A different demographic? Certainly not security only. All this existed well before 9/11 and the TSA. Changing demographics and travel patterns?
 
O&M said:
I don't believe that. The best days of this country are still to come...if we can get away from this entitlement mentality and get back to the values that this country was founded on.
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Yes but that's a pretty big "if"...
 
We couldn't afford to fly for family trips when I was a kid. Even then flying was out of the reach of many...

My first fight on a commercial airliner was on an Eagle ATR from MSN-ORD, enroute to DFW for my 2nd interview with Eagle as a FA. :)
 
Bob Ridpath said:
I've always wondered at the change and what happened to the world that seemed so routine back then. Anyone offer insight? It couldn't be simply the fares (see above). There was airline service to Podunk and back on everything from DC9s, 727s and Bac 1-11s to Navajos and Twin Otters. Where did it go and why? A different demographic? Certainly not security only. All this existed well before 9/11 and the TSA. Changing demographics and travel patterns?
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The biggest non-security change was the deregulation act of 1978...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act

Prior to 1978, the airlines were restricted to what routes they could fly and profits were almost guaranteed because the US government subsidized them. After 1978 all restrictions were lifted (economically) and the result is the free-for-all race to the bottom that we have today.
 
The consumer has absolutely no pricing control over the airline industry. How the customers can be blamed is beyond me. If the airlines want to jack up fares...then they should jack up fares. The customer can then decide whether to fly or not. Should customers pick a more expensive flight on Expedia...just to do the "right thing"? Customers can only choose whether to buy at a given price - the people setting the price are the ones in charge.
 
WacoFan said:
The consumer has absolutely no pricing control over the airline industry. How the customers can be blamed is beyond me. If the airlines want to jack up fares...then they should jack up fares. The customer can then decide whether to fly or not. Should customers pick a more expensive flight on Expedia...just to do the "right thing"? Customers can only choose whether to buy at a given price - the people setting the price are the ones in charge.
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Customers are simply taking what is being offered to them by the airlines.
 
What Mike and Waco said. You cannot expect a business to run well or pay well when what it's producing sells for less than what it costs to produce it. Not indefinitely.
 
HVYMETALDRVR said:
The biggest non-security change was the deregulation act of 1978...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act

Prior to 1978, the airlines were restricted to what routes they could fly and profits were almost guaranteed because the US government subsidized them. After 1978 all restrictions were lifted (economically) and the result is the free-for-all race to the bottom that we have today.
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Not so sure that's true. The language of the wiki entry says: "The CAB promoted air travel, for instance by generally attempting to hold fares down in the short-haul market, to be subsidized by higher fares in the long-haul market. The CAB also was obliged to ensure that the airlines had a reasonable rate of return."


The way that reads to me, it's the higher margins in the long-haul fares supporting the thinner ones in the short-haul, not actual Government-price-supports like they do on sugar or corn. In other words, the CAB said what they could charge, but didn't actually cut them a check for losses on those fares.

I may be wrong about my interpretation, but that's what it seems like.
 
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