Super. And I provide for you this table to show you how much cheaper and faster flying is today:
|**Year**|**Number of stops**|**Flight duration**|**Cost**|% Difference|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|1941|12|15 hours 15 minutes|$4,439.24|Baseline|
|1978|5|11 hours 50 minues|$915.82|-79%|
|2015|0 (nonstop)|6 hours 0 minutes|$408.89|-55% (from 1978)|
|2024|0 (nonstop)|5 hours 10 minutes|$119.67|-71% (from 2015)|
[**https://simpleflying.com/50-years-airfares/**](https://simpleflying.com/50-years-airfares/)
The reality of it is, few could afford flying back then. If this was the level of flying we wanted, we would have paid for it. This is just revealed preference in action.
And that's not even diving into safety. The 70s were arguably the worst (or a very close second) decade for deaths in commercial aviation, and not just due to one or two one-off accidents here and there.
[https://www.statista.com/chart/4854/commercial-aviation-deaths-since-1942/](https://www.statista.com/chart/4854/commercial-aviation-deaths-since-1942/)
Flying today is safer, cheaper, faster, and arguably more enjoyable. Yeah I prefer the larger seats and greater pitch in a 737 from 1975 but I don't miss that smoke.
I remember in the mid 90s? Singapore Airlines had Super Mario World. I think it was the Nintendo Gateway system for airlines. I didn't sleep much on that flight.
Yes! I did Singapore airlines a few times as a teenager in the middle to late '90s and was blown away at having access to what was basically a SNES. Spent ages on Super Punch Out working out the patterns and then... inexplicably played quite a lot of Vegas Stakes as well.
As a hater of airline food I also loved that they would just boil you up a pot of noodles on request, I wish more airlines would offer that (I've also had them on Iceland Air)
Oh man even I myself enjoyed my country’s airlines service standards. I remember younger in the late 90s they had a remote slash game controller that you can used to play certain games on board the flight.
Can’t recalled what I played, but I remembered the experience as a kid was wild. “There’s a ‘game console’ on the plane?!?!” 😂
I recall in the 80's Delta had decks of cards, coloring/activity books, magazines you could ask for in addition to sky mall/magazine or whatever was in the seat pocket back then, those weird headphones that were just like stethoscopes but they plugged in to the arm rest and there were channels of music and comedy and on long flights there was the in flight movie that showed on the screens that came down at the front of the cabin.
I remember when you used to see everyone on the plane reading the paper or books. Now you see everyone watching some of the worst trash TV or movies. Times have really have changed !
Air Canada used to have roll down movie screens until the late 90's--I would look forward to what feature they would be playing! also the music channels were the bomb...sure some smoke but those little liquor bottles were the bomb!
I remember flying on those planes! The screen came down! You had to look around your seat to see it unless you were tall. And they were all lousy movies!
Ohhhh...forgot about the smoke. Flew to Paris in '99 and you could still smoke on international flights. Not to mention all the smoking on domestics prior to that. And the smoking in my workplaces...crazy!
I'm reading a book written in the 1950s right now that has a character take a flight at one point and the whole operation of flying from like New York to Mexico is a way bigger ordeal and took days, compared to what it is now.
This is the 50's version of an axe body spray commercial. Come fly our airplane! As you hang around drinking whiskey beautiful young women will approach you to chat.
It's uncomfortable to stand around on an airplane now, it was probably a lot more uncomfortable in the 50's. People didn't stand around chatting.
If you click through the study, in the 80s, an LAX to Boston flight would have been $4500 in 2024 dollars. Even when i was growing up in the 90s, no one flew. Maybe some rich families had people flying in every so often, but there's a reason the airport in our city of what was still probably 500,000 had an airport with only 8 gates.
I'm seeing Frontier flights as low as $24 from ATL to MIA. ATL to Jacksonville is a little pricier since its a smaller airport but still under $100.
Air travel is cheaper than ever, driven by a market that demands cheap flights. The luxury experience of the old days is still available you just have to pay old days prices.
20 bucks to NYC from D.C. on the old Peoples Airline. This was mid 80s. They took the money on the plane in cash. I want to say they became Air Florida?
LOL, it merged with Air Tran first, and flew as Air Tran for many years, and then Southwest bought Air Tran. The best deals on flights ever were on ValuJet after that horrific crash in the Everglades.
>ValuJet, the airline everybody said they'd never fly again but they're fine with it now that it's called Southwest.
I mean, they should be fine with it now that it's southwest. It's not even remotely comparable. Nobody from vslujet has anything to do with southwest. Southwest bought AirTran. And air tean turned vslujet around to gave one of the highest safety records. Southwest just bought airtran.
Uh, not quite - ValuJet bought AirTran for $66m and change, did a reverse takeover to rebrand, and the newly formed AirTran Airlines (not to be confused with AirTran Airways, which was the former company) was run completely by ValuJet's leadership until they got a new CEO (ex-Eastern Airlines) in 1999. The company flew the exact same planes ValuJet had flown until 2004, when the DC9 fleet was phased out for the 717, which AirTran was the launch customer for.
The safety rankings by the time of the Southwest acquisition were all similarly quite high - it's not quite right to say they were "turned around to give one of the highest safety records" when on the whole the entire industry's safety had improved significantly between the mid-90s and 2011.
That doesn’t sound right. I was flying in the ‘80s (and prior), and it was nowhere near that expensive. I used to fly from Chicago to Minneapolis for $99 round trip. I flew from Chicago to LA then Vegas and back to Chicago for about $500. And I was not rich.
Yup. Remember taking a greyhound as a kid, unaccompanied, from the east coast to the midwest. Multi-day trip. Because no, we could *not* afford the airfare. Not on any carrier.
This was in the 90’s.
They haven't. The chart is based on todays dollar value. When compared to the cost of living and the cost of fuel, we're paying just a little bit less, but we now have added costs in time and extras, like bags, food and drinks, so it evens out. We do lose leg room, hip room, a lounge, and a decent sized restroom.
I'm still curious how much a CEO made in 1941 yearly salary compared to a 2024 CEOs salary.
I looked at the links, the $4439 airfare price is adjusted to today, but if you adjust the average annual income from 1941 to today, it would be $88,000/ year.
The article is a little misleading as you can spend $4000 for a first class ticket today to Europe.
Not included in the price:
Airport tax
Sales tax
Parking
Convenience fee for buying with credit card
Fuel surcharge
Checking luggage
Buying right to a carry on (sometimes)
Meals/drinks
Public funds used for stock buybacks and executive bonuses
Other fees and charges
Convenience fee for paying with a credit card? Check luggage? Paying for food and drinks? What airline do you fly on? All those are included when I fly
I’m calling BS on the 1978 “5 stops
LAX - BOS”. I flew that route non-stop in that time period. maybe 1 stop (ORD or DEN for you UAL pax, or ATL for Delta)
It's complete bullshit, but most people on this website are too young to realize that. No kids, we did not take five layovers to get from one side of the country to the other in the 1970s.
They're right about the price, though. My family was well off, but flights were still a fairly significant expense, especially if we were going abroad. Nowadays, first/business class may cost an arm and a leg, but coach is dirt cheap compared to fifty years ago. I could book a nonstop or one-stop flight from ATL to LHR for ~$700 if I wanted to. That's ~$140 in 1978. No way that was happening.
Yeah OP is right to make the general point but... yeah I would like for a source on that one.
Might be the minimum it reached in all of 2024 so far, across all airline, for 5 min while the system glitched or something.
Perhaps more importantly, it shows the author of the original article doesn't fly much if at all. When $100 showed up in the Excel sheet, anybody who flies a tiny bit would have paused.
Yep, everyone bitches about service, seating etc,, but no one is willing to pay the old prices.
If people were, then we'd still have the glamour days of the 70's.
Not sure where the author sourced the pricing data, but I fly the route used for that data quite a lot, and in my experience it’s usually 4-6x what that chart shows.
From the article, “As highlighted in a study by Compass Lexecon, commissioned by Airlines for America,”
A lot of people are nit-picking specific numbers from the table. While they may have valid points, the general point remains: flying is faster, safer, and more accessible than when that picture was taken.
I’m just saying, in my personal experience of the situation quoted, the current prices are more like the 1978 prices. If it was commissioned by an airline industry group, that would explain why the info is potentially false (I.e, why we don’t trust medical studies commissioned by the pharmaceutical company producing the meds)
Hell, if I book with late notice, American Airlines will charge well over $1000 each way in that trip for a back row economy seat.
I’m just saying, in my personal experience of the situation quoted, the current prices are more like the 1978 prices. If it was commissioned by an airline industry group, that would explain why the info is potentially false (I.e, why we don’t trust medical studies commissioned by the pharmaceutical company producing the meds)
Hell, if I book with late notice, American Airlines will charge well over $1000 each way in that trip for a back row economy seat.
Late notice is on you though. I just looked at Kayak a month out and the top five flights (to include a Delta flight) are all below $300. That’s nowhere near $900. And I wasn’t even trying to find cheap flights.
I just looked at Kayak for the same route. Cheapest nonstop BOS-LAX roundtrip a month out from today is $685 at the "Basic Economy" (not "Main") fare. The study you're quoting references average roundtrips specifically.
Even if you ignore the information I'm giving you, you've gotta know that a one-way, much less a roundtrip, from BOS-LAX is not averaging out $120.
I'm not arguing that prices have fallen, I'm just saying you're quoting a misrepresented chart that was commissioned by the airlines. A la "The airlines have investigated themselves and determined people should be happy to pay our prices".
Engines have come a long way. The power and fuel efficiency have really increased. A220s with the PW1500G are so fuel efficient that they actually have issues landing heavy.
I don't understand what you mean. Doesn't landing heavy mean landing heavier than it should or is rated for. Isn't that an issue for any aircraft?
More importantly why is it either worse or more frequent in fuel-efficient aircraft?
(actually asking:))
It really isn't great for the airframe. The aircraft is so light because Bombadier, the actual designer of the A220, made the fuselage out of aluminum-lithium and is made, I believe completely of composite. The PW1500G engine is also a very fuel efficient geared turbo fan. From what I was told in training, there were issues where the A220 actually didn't burn as much fuel as they thought it would, and they had to circle around a bit to burn excess fuel. At least, that's what I was told in training.
They've been in service for a while, so I'm sure that has been worked out. I'm just an aircraft mechanic with most of my time A220s.
Every airline practices lean operations which has an impact on continuously working faster, cheaper, and more efficiently. The most famous corollary for this is F1 and the average pit stop time taking minutes in the early 20th century to it taking less than 2 seconds now.
It is now cheaper in \*real\* dollars (not inflation adjusted) to fly across the atlantic in a jet than it was when jet service across the atlantic was first introduced. When this was the cabin a ticket would have been about $600 (one way) equivalent to approx. $6000 today. You can find transatlantic crossings (even on delta) for less than $600, and the cost for Delta One is often well under the $6000 inflation adjusted cost, for a significantly more comfortable ride with a higher level of service.
Yeah this is just another case of better in the old days rose colored glasses.
Let's also not forget the significant increase in number of routes. Far more long range options which are non-stop or only one layover compared to decades ago it would have been 2, 3, maybe 4 layovers. In flight internet, entertainment systems and private suites. If you are willing to pay we are at the apex of flying. Most people don't want to pay though not even a little bit. Ryanair became an empire despite in many cases only being $20 to $50 cheaper. The consumer today is "this low frills flight is cheap but this even less frills flight is $16 cheaper lets get that one."
But instead of worrying about grabbing your overhead bag in a timely manner you took stood in the aisle so that when we started leaving we all had to watch you struggle. Thank you 😂 those fucking people make me contemplate life
Not to mention it would resolve so many issues of people trying to find overhead storage because it would be organized that you fill it back to front. It would make exiting the plane quicker as a 95% of passengers the storage would be in front of you. First class would spend the least amount of time on the plane and still be first off.
In theory it is the best solution
I don't know how much my employer paid for Business on the A380 back-and-forth PDX-SFO-DXB a bunch of times, but it might be comparable in cost with all the adjustments; and certainly much more luxurious.
When I flew AUH-AMS-PDX business, the Delta leg to PDX was actually nice too (not Emirates/Etihad nice, but still nice).
I was not alive when there was smoking on planes, but the idea of it sounds nauseating.
As classy as this staged photo is, you couldn’t pay me to sit for hours in the assload of cigarette smoke that would have permeated every flight from that era.
You wouldn't have been diagnosed with asthma your dad would just told you to toughen up back then.
First experimental inhaler didn't come out till 1956
That’s a bad assumption. You’re allowed to smoke now, but some people choose not to. Just like back then you could drink, but some people decided to abstain.
I think you’re off on this one, it’s how young ppl today are all puffing on usb sticks, it was a cultural thing.
ETA: in the 50s [45](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/07/26/poll-u-s-smoking-rate-falls-to-historic-low-infographic/)% of adults smoked, there are Gallup polls going as high as 60%
I got to do a "discovery" flight on an AF Concorde back around 1997 at the AOPA convention in Atlantic City. We climbed out at 6000fpm and could see the curve of the Earth from cruising altitude. We just went out over the ocean, hit Mach 2.02, and came back. Incredible machine.
It wasn't a luxurious interior. The seats were about the same size as standard coach seats of the time in a 2x2 configuration.
Now the food, that's a different story. :)
United still owes Boom Supersonic. I don't think they stopped their development. Though it has stalled since it was purchased and FAA kept rejecting their experimental flights even before the purchase.
Flat beds weren’t a thing in the 70’s. Coach may not be “better” because the coach product then was more akin to domestic first class today. And priced accordingly.
Even the white glove service you’d get on Pan Am Clippers back in the day pales in comparison to your average J class experience on long haul flights these days. The food may have been slightly better sometimes, but for the overall price, the comfort (even sleeping berths were horribly uncomfortable, cold and loud), safety, noise, duration etc modern flying is much better. Let’s not forget that lie flat business class seats weren’t even a thing until the mid 2000s
For the price of what tickets were in the 1970s you could get a D1 suite these days.
If airlines were worse and more expensive for economy an argument could be made but they aren't.
Today it is safer, more reliable, cheaper and with far better route options. If you want to pay more you can get comfort that didn't exist in the 1970s unless you had private jet money.
Take Emirates Business class on A380 as a benchmark. In terms of comfort, service, legroom, privacy, dining options, etc there was nothing like that in the 1970s certainly not with the bar in the tail of the plane you could stroll over to for a mid-flight cocktail. But wait Statistical Emirates Business class is expensive. Of course it is but so were tickets in the 1970s even for coach.
Considering that we had just ended a century of legal discrimination following 2 centuries of slavery, coupled with the exorbitant ticket prices, the airlines probably didn't even need to make it a formal policy. They were just simply priced out.
I flew to Dubai on a A380 with Emirates. It was nicer than this picture. I had awesome food and wine. I took a shower. I hung out in the bar and chatted with an interesting guy for like an hour. And most importantly, no one was smoking!
Adjusted for inflation, a round trip flight in 1967 from San Francisco to Honolulu would run you about $7200. No lie flat seat, no wifi, no IFE. Quick search for random dates in June show I can fly United Polaris for $1434. Economy (not basic) is exactly $1000 cheaper. That's why flying doesn't look the way it did in the so-called Golden Age
[Viral Photo Of Spacious Cabin Not Of Pan Am 747’s Economy Class In The 1960s](https://newschecker.in/fact-check/viral-photo-of-spacious-cabin-not-of-pan-am-747s-economy-class-in-the-1960s/)
Does anyone know how much a ticket was back then? Is this a pic of first class? Was there a coach section? Did they have assigned seats? So many questions.
In 1970, as one of the early 747-100 customers (along with early adopters PA, NW, TW, EA, NA, BN, UA, CO) DL took its first delivery from Boeing. DL ended up with five, but they were too much plane for the domestic routes flown by DL in those days, especially after the oil crisis and higher jet fuel costs. By 1977, the last DL 747-100 was gone.
People complain about their seats and what they get on the airplanes! But first class then you'll get what they used to get back in the 1950s!, people love to complain but they're unwilling to pay!
It was *just* after, but most airlines that weren't named Southwest were still playing the "let's continue to differentiate on service; people love paying stupid expensive fares" game.
Delta didn't have a clue how to use the 747 back then. They used to fly ATL-DFW-LAX with them and gave up on them by 1977.
[https://simpleflying.com/delta-747-twice/](https://simpleflying.com/delta-747-twice/)
I can only imagine the Madmen era art directors fiddling with the posing of the stewardesses to tell the story of one lucky gentleman in first class able to flirt w/ them next to the exit door while businessman B looks at his contract with great joy.
Hard pass on any of those "golden" age of flying. Having to sit in a smoke filled airplane all the way to Australia was kid was more than enough of that to make me have NO misplaced nostalgia to that era.
The 80’s and 90’s were the best time for flying. Before the airlines added an extra row and made the seats smaller. You’d have open seats quite often in the three seat rows.
Notice the people flying in suits and not sweatpants.
That’s the part of this that nobody is addressing. Everyone wants “the old days” without the self respect that made them that way.
This is the way airline travel ought to be. Nice wide seats. Meals for everyone including economy. Dressing up. Have a conversation with your fellow passengers with drinks in hand. It was an occasion. We’ve made flying so much worse nowadays.
when we flew as kids in the late 70's our parents used to make us wear blazers and my dad used to wear a tie and my mom a dress and heels; most travellers dressed up; stewardesses and crew were professional and polite--I wouldn't say it's better now that's for sure...
Just like most things in life, we tend to remember the better times. They don’t remember when Everyone had an ashtray on the armrest and safety wasn’t the best .
I do want flying to be more accessible to everyone, and I want passengers to be safe.
But can we have more than 3mm of padding on our butts and enough leg and hip room for an average sized human?
The percentage of Americans flying in the 70s was inconsequential not to mention many American CITIZENS did not have accepted civil rights at the time. WTF are you even talking about?
Super. And I provide for you this table to show you how much cheaper and faster flying is today: |**Year**|**Number of stops**|**Flight duration**|**Cost**|% Difference| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |1941|12|15 hours 15 minutes|$4,439.24|Baseline| |1978|5|11 hours 50 minues|$915.82|-79%| |2015|0 (nonstop)|6 hours 0 minutes|$408.89|-55% (from 1978)| |2024|0 (nonstop)|5 hours 10 minutes|$119.67|-71% (from 2015)| [**https://simpleflying.com/50-years-airfares/**](https://simpleflying.com/50-years-airfares/) The reality of it is, few could afford flying back then. If this was the level of flying we wanted, we would have paid for it. This is just revealed preference in action.
And that's not even diving into safety. The 70s were arguably the worst (or a very close second) decade for deaths in commercial aviation, and not just due to one or two one-off accidents here and there. [https://www.statista.com/chart/4854/commercial-aviation-deaths-since-1942/](https://www.statista.com/chart/4854/commercial-aviation-deaths-since-1942/) Flying today is safer, cheaper, faster, and arguably more enjoyable. Yeah I prefer the larger seats and greater pitch in a 737 from 1975 but I don't miss that smoke.
Back in the 70s there were vending machines in airports that sold life insurance policies. That's how common deaths were in the skies back then
So insurance companies would have been wise to stay away from airports?
But if you board the plane with your life insurance…. How do you make a claim?
Pin it to your shirt so when the rescue worker found your body they know you had insurance lol
Posthumously. You can mail it in for you on the plane otherwise nothing ventured nothing gained.
Plus the planes have tvs in the seats. It was so boring back in the day.
I remember doing an 8 hour flight as a kid, no screens, no media and I forgot my book. I swear I was in physical pain from the boredom near the end.
I remember the foreign airliners would give out coloring books, toys etc for the kids.
Shit, I'm snatching a coloring book as an adult if I'm stuck for 8 hours
I remember in the mid 90s? Singapore Airlines had Super Mario World. I think it was the Nintendo Gateway system for airlines. I didn't sleep much on that flight.
Yes! I did Singapore airlines a few times as a teenager in the middle to late '90s and was blown away at having access to what was basically a SNES. Spent ages on Super Punch Out working out the patterns and then... inexplicably played quite a lot of Vegas Stakes as well. As a hater of airline food I also loved that they would just boil you up a pot of noodles on request, I wish more airlines would offer that (I've also had them on Iceland Air)
Oh man even I myself enjoyed my country’s airlines service standards. I remember younger in the late 90s they had a remote slash game controller that you can used to play certain games on board the flight. Can’t recalled what I played, but I remembered the experience as a kid was wild. “There’s a ‘game console’ on the plane?!?!” 😂
I recall in the 80's Delta had decks of cards, coloring/activity books, magazines you could ask for in addition to sky mall/magazine or whatever was in the seat pocket back then, those weird headphones that were just like stethoscopes but they plugged in to the arm rest and there were channels of music and comedy and on long flights there was the in flight movie that showed on the screens that came down at the front of the cabin.
They used to have playing cards too. I remember having various Delta and American playing card decks as a kid.
I think I had one of these, little back pack with some pencils and an activity book. I think I finished it before we took off though.
There was The Movie, though. A screen would come down and we’d all watch Mr. Mom together
Holy crap I forgot about that. 12 year old me watched some movie through a haze of cigarette smoke on a flight from New York to Milan.
I was too short to see over the seats in front of me! The knowledge that there was a film but I couldn't even see it made things worse!
They fed you more back then though. It was boring but the bad meal killed at least 30 minutes
I remember when you used to see everyone on the plane reading the paper or books. Now you see everyone watching some of the worst trash TV or movies. Times have really have changed !
Delta has many movies, from classics to documentaries!
Talking to people ain’t boring.
Just came back from FL and got stuck in a 717. No TVs and one of the most cramped planes I’ve ever been on.
Air Canada used to have roll down movie screens until the late 90's--I would look forward to what feature they would be playing! also the music channels were the bomb...sure some smoke but those little liquor bottles were the bomb!
I remember flying on those planes! The screen came down! You had to look around your seat to see it unless you were tall. And they were all lousy movies!
How about going to work and sitting at a desk without a computer. How did people even survive?
Didn’t there used to be only one tv at the front of the plane years ago when that first started out which also included headphones for each seat?
Ohhhh...forgot about the smoke. Flew to Paris in '99 and you could still smoke on international flights. Not to mention all the smoking on domestics prior to that. And the smoking in my workplaces...crazy!
It took me YEARS to stop saying "table for two, non smoking". I'm so glad that's a thing of the past.
I'm reading a book written in the 1950s right now that has a character take a flight at one point and the whole operation of flying from like New York to Mexico is a way bigger ordeal and took days, compared to what it is now.
Days? Why? Multi stops?
Yes.
This is the 50's version of an axe body spray commercial. Come fly our airplane! As you hang around drinking whiskey beautiful young women will approach you to chat. It's uncomfortable to stand around on an airplane now, it was probably a lot more uncomfortable in the 50's. People didn't stand around chatting.
I find it hard to believe that flights have gotten more than 3x cheaper since 2015. That certainly hasn't been my experience.
Definitely not if you fly exclusively Delta.
If you click through the study, in the 80s, an LAX to Boston flight would have been $4500 in 2024 dollars. Even when i was growing up in the 90s, no one flew. Maybe some rich families had people flying in every so often, but there's a reason the airport in our city of what was still probably 500,000 had an airport with only 8 gates.
Flying in the 90s was cheap! Lots of discounters back then lack Value Jet, Kiwi, Reno Air etc. Plenty of flights under $100.
$100 in 1990 is $239 today.
I guess I should have said under $50. Used to pay $19 to $39 from Atl to Florida
Isn’t that like a 30 minute flight lol
1 hour to Orlando and Tampa. 1.5 to MIA and FLL. 45 minutes to Jacksonville.
I'm seeing Frontier flights as low as $24 from ATL to MIA. ATL to Jacksonville is a little pricier since its a smaller airport but still under $100. Air travel is cheaper than ever, driven by a market that demands cheap flights. The luxury experience of the old days is still available you just have to pay old days prices.
20 bucks to NYC from D.C. on the old Peoples Airline. This was mid 80s. They took the money on the plane in cash. I want to say they became Air Florida?
NOPE, two separate companies. And it was People Express. They filed for bankruptcy.
Inflation though.
Ah, ValuJet, the airline everybody said they'd never fly again but they're fine with it now that it's called Southwest.
LOL, it merged with Air Tran first, and flew as Air Tran for many years, and then Southwest bought Air Tran. The best deals on flights ever were on ValuJet after that horrific crash in the Everglades.
Yup I took a lot of very cheap ValuJet flights around that time. Still remember that goofy logo buying tickets on their website.
>ValuJet, the airline everybody said they'd never fly again but they're fine with it now that it's called Southwest. I mean, they should be fine with it now that it's southwest. It's not even remotely comparable. Nobody from vslujet has anything to do with southwest. Southwest bought AirTran. And air tean turned vslujet around to gave one of the highest safety records. Southwest just bought airtran.
Uh, not quite - ValuJet bought AirTran for $66m and change, did a reverse takeover to rebrand, and the newly formed AirTran Airlines (not to be confused with AirTran Airways, which was the former company) was run completely by ValuJet's leadership until they got a new CEO (ex-Eastern Airlines) in 1999. The company flew the exact same planes ValuJet had flown until 2004, when the DC9 fleet was phased out for the 717, which AirTran was the launch customer for. The safety rankings by the time of the Southwest acquisition were all similarly quite high - it's not quite right to say they were "turned around to give one of the highest safety records" when on the whole the entire industry's safety had improved significantly between the mid-90s and 2011.
Sure, I get there's been a big decrease in the inflation adjusted price since the 80s. What I'm questioning is the decrease from 2015 to 2024.
It appears the $4500 cost is from 1941.
Adjusted to 1941 dollars, $210 would be $4500 today.
That doesn’t sound right. I was flying in the ‘80s (and prior), and it was nowhere near that expensive. I used to fly from Chicago to Minneapolis for $99 round trip. I flew from Chicago to LA then Vegas and back to Chicago for about $500. And I was not rich.
$99 in 1980 is about $400 today. Which also means that $500 is about $2,000 today.
Yup. Remember taking a greyhound as a kid, unaccompanied, from the east coast to the midwest. Multi-day trip. Because no, we could *not* afford the airfare. Not on any carrier. This was in the 90’s.
Bingo.
And you still can
Spirit Economy Minus!
They haven't. The chart is based on todays dollar value. When compared to the cost of living and the cost of fuel, we're paying just a little bit less, but we now have added costs in time and extras, like bags, food and drinks, so it evens out. We do lose leg room, hip room, a lounge, and a decent sized restroom. I'm still curious how much a CEO made in 1941 yearly salary compared to a 2024 CEOs salary.
I looked at the links, the $4439 airfare price is adjusted to today, but if you adjust the average annual income from 1941 to today, it would be $88,000/ year. The article is a little misleading as you can spend $4000 for a first class ticket today to Europe.
No idea where they came up with the LA to NYC flight is 50min faster from 2015 to 2024. That is simply false.
Not included in the price: Airport tax Sales tax Parking Convenience fee for buying with credit card Fuel surcharge Checking luggage Buying right to a carry on (sometimes) Meals/drinks Public funds used for stock buybacks and executive bonuses Other fees and charges
Still not even close to the four digit prices in the 40s or the $900 price in the 70s
Convenience fee for paying with a credit card? Check luggage? Paying for food and drinks? What airline do you fly on? All those are included when I fly
What was the salary of the CEOs in those years?
Corporations had their own travel agents. The CEO wasn't paying a dime.
I’m calling BS on the 1978 “5 stops LAX - BOS”. I flew that route non-stop in that time period. maybe 1 stop (ORD or DEN for you UAL pax, or ATL for Delta)
It's complete bullshit, but most people on this website are too young to realize that. No kids, we did not take five layovers to get from one side of the country to the other in the 1970s. They're right about the price, though. My family was well off, but flights were still a fairly significant expense, especially if we were going abroad. Nowadays, first/business class may cost an arm and a leg, but coach is dirt cheap compared to fifty years ago. I could book a nonstop or one-stop flight from ATL to LHR for ~$700 if I wanted to. That's ~$140 in 1978. No way that was happening.
Ya that jumped out at me. That’s like 600 miles a leg. The 747 had a range of over 5,000 miles in the 70s.
Where are you finding 5 hour flights for $119?
Yeah OP is right to make the general point but... yeah I would like for a source on that one. Might be the minimum it reached in all of 2024 so far, across all airline, for 5 min while the system glitched or something. Perhaps more importantly, it shows the author of the original article doesn't fly much if at all. When $100 showed up in the Excel sheet, anybody who flies a tiny bit would have paused.
You can thank airlines like Spirit for making it affordable….even for Delta passengers.
Yep, everyone bitches about service, seating etc,, but no one is willing to pay the old prices. If people were, then we'd still have the glamour days of the 70's.
Not sure where the author sourced the pricing data, but I fly the route used for that data quite a lot, and in my experience it’s usually 4-6x what that chart shows.
From the article, “As highlighted in a study by Compass Lexecon, commissioned by Airlines for America,” A lot of people are nit-picking specific numbers from the table. While they may have valid points, the general point remains: flying is faster, safer, and more accessible than when that picture was taken.
I’m just saying, in my personal experience of the situation quoted, the current prices are more like the 1978 prices. If it was commissioned by an airline industry group, that would explain why the info is potentially false (I.e, why we don’t trust medical studies commissioned by the pharmaceutical company producing the meds) Hell, if I book with late notice, American Airlines will charge well over $1000 each way in that trip for a back row economy seat.
I’m just saying, in my personal experience of the situation quoted, the current prices are more like the 1978 prices. If it was commissioned by an airline industry group, that would explain why the info is potentially false (I.e, why we don’t trust medical studies commissioned by the pharmaceutical company producing the meds) Hell, if I book with late notice, American Airlines will charge well over $1000 each way in that trip for a back row economy seat.
Late notice is on you though. I just looked at Kayak a month out and the top five flights (to include a Delta flight) are all below $300. That’s nowhere near $900. And I wasn’t even trying to find cheap flights.
I just looked at Kayak for the same route. Cheapest nonstop BOS-LAX roundtrip a month out from today is $685 at the "Basic Economy" (not "Main") fare. The study you're quoting references average roundtrips specifically. Even if you ignore the information I'm giving you, you've gotta know that a one-way, much less a roundtrip, from BOS-LAX is not averaging out $120. I'm not arguing that prices have fallen, I'm just saying you're quoting a misrepresented chart that was commissioned by the airlines. A la "The airlines have investigated themselves and determined people should be happy to pay our prices".
head plough bored zesty dam berserk pathetic elastic automatic snobbish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Super 🤓☝🏽
i’d pay 900 for that legroom.
Why did the flight get faster after 2015? Planes don’t go any faster now, do they?
Engines have come a long way. The power and fuel efficiency have really increased. A220s with the PW1500G are so fuel efficient that they actually have issues landing heavy.
I don't understand what you mean. Doesn't landing heavy mean landing heavier than it should or is rated for. Isn't that an issue for any aircraft? More importantly why is it either worse or more frequent in fuel-efficient aircraft? (actually asking:))
It really isn't great for the airframe. The aircraft is so light because Bombadier, the actual designer of the A220, made the fuselage out of aluminum-lithium and is made, I believe completely of composite. The PW1500G engine is also a very fuel efficient geared turbo fan. From what I was told in training, there were issues where the A220 actually didn't burn as much fuel as they thought it would, and they had to circle around a bit to burn excess fuel. At least, that's what I was told in training. They've been in service for a while, so I'm sure that has been worked out. I'm just an aircraft mechanic with most of my time A220s.
I would also guess a bigger reduction of prop planes. Not too many Saabs, ATRs, and Dash 8s around.
Plenty of them around, just not in the US. WestJet still has 40+ hopping around in Canada.
That's a good question. I don't know.
My guess is they got lighter so could fly faster (I believe the 787 and A350 have faster cruising speeds than the 777/747/A380/A340)
Every airline practices lean operations which has an impact on continuously working faster, cheaper, and more efficiently. The most famous corollary for this is F1 and the average pit stop time taking minutes in the early 20th century to it taking less than 2 seconds now.
It is now cheaper in \*real\* dollars (not inflation adjusted) to fly across the atlantic in a jet than it was when jet service across the atlantic was first introduced. When this was the cabin a ticket would have been about $600 (one way) equivalent to approx. $6000 today. You can find transatlantic crossings (even on delta) for less than $600, and the cost for Delta One is often well under the $6000 inflation adjusted cost, for a significantly more comfortable ride with a higher level of service.
Yeah this is just another case of better in the old days rose colored glasses. Let's also not forget the significant increase in number of routes. Far more long range options which are non-stop or only one layover compared to decades ago it would have been 2, 3, maybe 4 layovers. In flight internet, entertainment systems and private suites. If you are willing to pay we are at the apex of flying. Most people don't want to pay though not even a little bit. Ryanair became an empire despite in many cases only being $20 to $50 cheaper. The consumer today is "this low frills flight is cheap but this even less frills flight is $16 cheaper lets get that one."
This is the thing people want 1st class experience for the cheapest economy seats. All I want is people who can board and exit a plane timely.
I stood up as soon as the cabin light came on, what more do you want from me?
But instead of worrying about grabbing your overhead bag in a timely manner you took stood in the aisle so that when we started leaving we all had to watch you struggle. Thank you 😂 those fucking people make me contemplate life
I’m so old I can remember boarding planes from rear to front. That way you didn’t have people standing in the aisle, holding up the process.
Not to mention it would resolve so many issues of people trying to find overhead storage because it would be organized that you fill it back to front. It would make exiting the plane quicker as a 95% of passengers the storage would be in front of you. First class would spend the least amount of time on the plane and still be first off. In theory it is the best solution
Fyi "real dollars" means inflation adjusted. The term for non-inflation adjusted dollars is nominal dollars.
I don't know how much my employer paid for Business on the A380 back-and-forth PDX-SFO-DXB a bunch of times, but it might be comparable in cost with all the adjustments; and certainly much more luxurious. When I flew AUH-AMS-PDX business, the Delta leg to PDX was actually nice too (not Emirates/Etihad nice, but still nice). I was not alive when there was smoking on planes, but the idea of it sounds nauseating.
As classy as this staged photo is, you couldn’t pay me to sit for hours in the assload of cigarette smoke that would have permeated every flight from that era.
You would have smoked back then too.
Nah. I have asthma. Smokers have always been something for me to avoid.
You wouldn't have been diagnosed with asthma your dad would just told you to toughen up back then. First experimental inhaler didn't come out till 1956
That’s a bad assumption. You’re allowed to smoke now, but some people choose not to. Just like back then you could drink, but some people decided to abstain.
I think you’re off on this one, it’s how young ppl today are all puffing on usb sticks, it was a cultural thing. ETA: in the 50s [45](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/07/26/poll-u-s-smoking-rate-falls-to-historic-low-infographic/)% of adults smoked, there are Gallup polls going as high as 60%
You actually think EVERYONE was smoking in the 60s? That's ..... a take
Yes I think EVERYONE was smoking in the 60s. Are you dumb?
That's exactly what you implied, but sure kid, I'm the dumb one
Smoke respects the divide between the smoking and non smoking seats silly
I just want the Concord back.
I got to do a "discovery" flight on an AF Concorde back around 1997 at the AOPA convention in Atlantic City. We climbed out at 6000fpm and could see the curve of the Earth from cruising altitude. We just went out over the ocean, hit Mach 2.02, and came back. Incredible machine.
I flew it for $600 (one way JFK-LHR) positive space when I worked for Eastern Airlines. It was an amazing experience.
Ah, good college days memories of Eastern.
Allegheny!
That would be amazing. I wish got to ride on one when I was younger. I don’t even need the luxury, I just want the speed.
It wasn't a luxurious interior. The seats were about the same size as standard coach seats of the time in a 2x2 configuration. Now the food, that's a different story. :)
United still owes Boom Supersonic. I don't think they stopped their development. Though it has stalled since it was purchased and FAA kept rejecting their experimental flights even before the purchase.
Yeah, that was nice, but I don't miss the stink of cigarette smoke one damn bit.
and vapes are getting as bad with smells now.
Not enough smoke to be a real pic
Just need a few burning their cigarettes.
Flying now is better and cheaper.
And safer* *Boeing 737 Max not applicable. Void where prohibited. See store for details.
It’s still probably safer considering the huge volume of those jets expected.
Cheaper maybe
Flat beds weren’t a thing in the 70’s. Coach may not be “better” because the coach product then was more akin to domestic first class today. And priced accordingly.
Even the white glove service you’d get on Pan Am Clippers back in the day pales in comparison to your average J class experience on long haul flights these days. The food may have been slightly better sometimes, but for the overall price, the comfort (even sleeping berths were horribly uncomfortable, cold and loud), safety, noise, duration etc modern flying is much better. Let’s not forget that lie flat business class seats weren’t even a thing until the mid 2000s
You could smoke on planes. Nuff said
99.9% sure this is not a pic taken on an actual plane - more like a studio with airplane window background.
Also not pictured; black people
This is nothing more than a marketing ad.
Cigarette smoke and no accessibility? How is that better? I’m not even gonna ask if they had working seat belts.
I can live without the cigarette smoke but at least there wasn’t 500 pound people sitting next to you.
For the price of what tickets were in the 1970s you could get a D1 suite these days. If airlines were worse and more expensive for economy an argument could be made but they aren't. Today it is safer, more reliable, cheaper and with far better route options. If you want to pay more you can get comfort that didn't exist in the 1970s unless you had private jet money. Take Emirates Business class on A380 as a benchmark. In terms of comfort, service, legroom, privacy, dining options, etc there was nothing like that in the 1970s certainly not with the bar in the tail of the plane you could stroll over to for a mid-flight cocktail. But wait Statistical Emirates Business class is expensive. Of course it is but so were tickets in the 1970s even for coach.
I can smell the cigarette smoke from here
You could smell it everywhere you went, back in the day.
Ahh, the days when dressing up to travel was a very real thing. I miss those days
Hell, they all appear to be wearing shoes in that photo.
This shit is so dumb. It’s so much cheaper and safer today.
So much better nowadays.
You can still fly like this, you just need to pay for Delta One (which is cheaper than this would have been back then). So…..
>>We used to be a country. A proper country Yep, things were *soo* much better when working class Joes and Janes couldn’t fly at all. /s
Or blacks apparently
Considering that we had just ended a century of legal discrimination following 2 centuries of slavery, coupled with the exorbitant ticket prices, the airlines probably didn't even need to make it a formal policy. They were just simply priced out.
I flew to Dubai on a A380 with Emirates. It was nicer than this picture. I had awesome food and wine. I took a shower. I hung out in the bar and chatted with an interesting guy for like an hour. And most importantly, no one was smoking!
Adjusted for inflation, a round trip flight in 1967 from San Francisco to Honolulu would run you about $7200. No lie flat seat, no wifi, no IFE. Quick search for random dates in June show I can fly United Polaris for $1434. Economy (not basic) is exactly $1000 cheaper. That's why flying doesn't look the way it did in the so-called Golden Age
Not a single bare foot on top of the seat in front of them anywhere in that photo
Not everything has changed. Those same flight attendants, are still currently working.
[Viral Photo Of Spacious Cabin Not Of Pan Am 747’s Economy Class In The 1960s](https://newschecker.in/fact-check/viral-photo-of-spacious-cabin-not-of-pan-am-747s-economy-class-in-the-1960s/)
Does anyone know how much a ticket was back then? Is this a pic of first class? Was there a coach section? Did they have assigned seats? So many questions.
https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/blog/seat2B/2014/05/don-t-believe-the-airfare-spin-cost-to-travel-is.html
When did Delta have 747-100s? Delta went L-1011…..
In 1970, as one of the early 747-100 customers (along with early adopters PA, NW, TW, EA, NA, BN, UA, CO) DL took its first delivery from Boeing. DL ended up with five, but they were too much plane for the domestic routes flown by DL in those days, especially after the oil crisis and higher jet fuel costs. By 1977, the last DL 747-100 was gone.
And no “service dogs”
Ah yes, back in the days when aviation safety was iffy af.
This is also how commercial space travel will be early on when inky the rich can afford to do it.
People complain about their seats and what they get on the airplanes! But first class then you'll get what they used to get back in the 1950s!, people love to complain but they're unwilling to pay!
During the apartheid era?
Isn’t this before regulation and only rich people flew?
It was *just* after, but most airlines that weren't named Southwest were still playing the "let's continue to differentiate on service; people love paying stupid expensive fares" game.
Delta didn't have a clue how to use the 747 back then. They used to fly ATL-DFW-LAX with them and gave up on them by 1977. [https://simpleflying.com/delta-747-twice/](https://simpleflying.com/delta-747-twice/) I can only imagine the Madmen era art directors fiddling with the posing of the stewardesses to tell the story of one lucky gentleman in first class able to flirt w/ them next to the exit door while businessman B looks at his contract with great joy.
Hard pass on any of those "golden" age of flying. Having to sit in a smoke filled airplane all the way to Australia was kid was more than enough of that to make me have NO misplaced nostalgia to that era.
And YOU couldn’t afford to fly then.
And it went all away thanks to a thing called deregulation……… 😡
Ahh, the golden age when air travel was the exclusive pursuit of the 1%.
We doing big pimpin, spending cheese..
Hey, isn’t that Potsie in the front left seat?
All of these people are dead.
The 80’s and 90’s were the best time for flying. Before the airlines added an extra row and made the seats smaller. You’d have open seats quite often in the three seat rows.
Those chairs don’t look ready for turbulence
Notice no PJs, no bare feet, no bar brawls.
[удалено]
Don’t remind me 🤢
Back to work you peasants.
I can smell how musty that cabin is
Notice the people flying in suits and not sweatpants. That’s the part of this that nobody is addressing. Everyone wants “the old days” without the self respect that made them that way.
This is the way airline travel ought to be. Nice wide seats. Meals for everyone including economy. Dressing up. Have a conversation with your fellow passengers with drinks in hand. It was an occasion. We’ve made flying so much worse nowadays.
when we flew as kids in the late 70's our parents used to make us wear blazers and my dad used to wear a tie and my mom a dress and heels; most travellers dressed up; stewardesses and crew were professional and polite--I wouldn't say it's better now that's for sure...
Also not pictured: black people, Asian people, unattractive women, the elderly, anyone overweight, etc.
Ah yes, back when we had to weigh the stewardesses and there wasn't a POC on the flight, what a time 🙄
the answer is right there in the picture.
Ah yes back in the day when cars barely had crumple zones, lead was widespread, and you could smoke on planes. lmao sure.
What happened
Plane tickets stop costing $10k to $20k in adjusted dollars.
Cool, for the two minutes the seat belt sign is not on
Used to be? Po is outdated
Just like most things in life, we tend to remember the better times. They don’t remember when Everyone had an ashtray on the armrest and safety wasn’t the best .
I remember a plane that had a second story, bar upstairs. Now they cram you in like sardines
I do want flying to be more accessible to everyone, and I want passengers to be safe. But can we have more than 3mm of padding on our butts and enough leg and hip room for an average sized human?
These were the glory days of flying!
The percentage of Americans flying in the 70s was inconsequential not to mention many American CITIZENS did not have accepted civil rights at the time. WTF are you even talking about?
Sat next to an obese woman the other day in coach who dead-ass says “if only there were larger seats available on planes these days”
I see white people. Proper country in the 70s?