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The Great Days of Airline Travel

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AndyinPA
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#26

Post by AndyinPA »

That's interesting. Thanks for the links.
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scirreeve
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#27

Post by scirreeve »

PDX (Portland Oregon) has had "street pricing" for restaurants and retailers for decades.
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#28

Post by jez »

Back in the day when I worked for a certain motel chain and had to travel occasionally, I flew out of Milwaukee. It was actually easier for me to get to that airport than it was O'Hare or Midway.

The travel department people loved me, by the way, because I was nice to them and let them do their job. They would usually end up booking me to fly on Midwest Express as often as possible. All seats were comfy leather, first class size and distance. Real food served on real china with real utensils. No plastic in sight. Even real glasses! Great coffee, too. Oh, and a warm, fresh baked cookie on every flight. You could smell them baking while flying.

I miss that airline. Rarely fly anymore since I injured the ears, but I did like that one.
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#29

Post by MN-Skeptic »

For a number of years my husband did a lot of flying for business. I remember one story where there was an issue with seats. The man ahead of my sweetie was just rude to the flight agent. The flight agent was apologetic but sorry she couldn’t help. Next up, my very personable sweetie commiserated with the flight agent. Funny... she was able to do for my sweetie something that apparently she couldn’t do for the rude man. :lol:
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#30

Post by neonzx »

jez wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:26 pm The travel department people loved me, by the way, because I was nice to them and let them do their job. They would usually end up booking me to fly on Midwest Express as often as possible. All seats were comfy leather, first class size and distance. Real food served on real china with real utensils. No plastic in sight. Even real glasses! Great coffee, too. Oh, and a warm, fresh baked cookie on every flight. You could smell them baking while flying.

I miss that airline. Rarely fly anymore since I injured the ears, but I did like that one.
omg, I'd forgotten about them. They were a pleasure to fly with -- my favorite if they had a route to my destination. They always went a little above the norm in service for being on the same fare-scale as the major airlines. And yes, I remember the COOKIES!
:bunny:
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Luke
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#31

Post by Luke »

jcolvin2 wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:21 pm
Volkonski wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:16 pm The best airline service I ever experienced was on Singapore Airlines in first class.
First Class on JAL to Tokyo was also quite nice.
LOVED both of those. A rich Japanese client/friend said she had used to fly JAL 1st, but they took too good care of her, always asking if she needed something, always serving food... she said she switched to United because they didn't care and ignored you. Kinda a left-handed compliment :lol:

Also loved the ice cream sundaes on Continental, which with champagne were some of the best parts of flying.

As poor young people, my roommate and I in NYC used to fly New York Air to Orlando to have fun almost every weekend. They ALWAYS overbooked the flight. The deal was if they overbooked you, you got on the next flight free (only a few hours later), you got to keep the return flight, and you got a free roundtrip ticket for the future. We worked that system so hard... we had like 12 free roundtrips and never had to pay again. We'd get the cheapest rental car and a flop motel on South Orange Blossom Trail. It was Disney by day and decadence by night, we'd go hang out with the drag queens at the Parliament House on the trail. That was our weekend getaway almost every weekend. We also used People's Express and did crazy stuff like fly to Portland Maine just for dinner and come back. It was so cheap it was worth it and fun as heck.

While the 1st Class flights later in life were awesome, we still talk more about our NYAir and People's Express adventures.
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scirreeve
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#32

Post by scirreeve »

Late 80s or early 90s I was supposed to go on a business trip to HK from Portland. Couple of days before I left my then boss (an idiot) asked me to stop in London on my way to meet with some potential clients from India (India was not in my territory then - was later). I asked him if he was familiar with geography (not really - I was more subtle than that). I agreed to do it but said he needed to fly me first class (business class was standard for us on overseas flights then). I ended up doing it - landed in London that morning - spent an hour or 2 in hotel showering, shaving etc. then went to the Grosvenor Hotel in London and met with clients - got contract (and yes my idiot boss paid me commission for that). Flew out that afternoon to HK 1st class on Cathay Pacific. Was wonderful - I remember a caviar set up. I slept mostly after that which was the point of asking for 1st class.
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#33

Post by Sunrise »

Orlylicious, I’m so glad you started this thread as it’s brought back some wonderful memories. Many moons ago my husband and I were flying from Miami to Abaco for a vacation. We had to fly to Nassau and then take a puddle-jumper. When we landed in Nassau we raced to catch our connecting flight, and when we got to the gate we saw our little plane out on the runway. They were pulling up the stairs and wouldn’t let us board because they said we were too late. There were two flights a day and that was the final one, in the late afternoon.

They rebooked us for a morning flight and gave us vouchers for... ready for this? Cab from airport to a hotel, hotel room, dinner, breakfast, and cab back to the airport. It’s hard to imagine that kind of generosity these days, or anything even close to it.
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#34

Post by Maybenaut »

My Dad used to fly on business a lot in the 1960s. He’d always come home with “jump spoons” from Delta Airlines. He called them jump spoons because they “jumped” into his jacket pocket. That was back when the airlines had hotel plate flatware. My sister still has them.
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Re: The Great Days of Airline Travel

#35

Post by somerset »

I was Solitaire PPS on Singapore Airlines for a few years, which made the monthly back and forth between Singapore and San Diego not too bad. I expect it's still the same, once you don't have to spend 14 days in quarantine upon arrival ;)
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