The Passion of Former Days:
A terrific set of cigarette cards depicting a flight from London to Amsterdam in the early days of commercial air travel. The images (each “from an official photograph supplied by Imperial Airways”) are accompanied by text detailing “our” flight, from check-in and take-off, to views over the Channel, France, and Brussels (where we land for lunch), to the final landing in Amsterdam.
I’ve included the backs with the text, as the little details are fascinating insights into a time when planes held “as many as” 20 passengers, reached cruising altitudes of 3,000 feet, and got from London to Brussels in “only” two and a half hours.
For the vast majority of us, flying is an awful experience but, in the 1920’s, if you could afford it, flying was a lot more genteel. The descriptions on the backs of these cigarette cards are also wonderful insights in to how writing has evolved and how information was presented to customers of the day.
“For the vast majority of us, flying is an awful experience”
Define awful. And watch Louis CK’s take on it while you are at it :-/
As long as I can get to my destination more-or-less on schedule (happens 80+% of the time), safely (commercial air travel is extraordinarily safe), with reasonable comfort (this has slipped a bit in the last 10 years but generally is reasonable for the price), and at a reasonable price (BINGO!!), I can’t see what we really have to complain about. Sure, we’d all like to fly first class comfort for economy class prices, but that would not be sustainable without massive subsidies. Maybe 20 years in the future, but not now, in 2014. “The perfect is the enemy of the good”…
Genteel if you disregard the fact they didn’t fly above the weather in those days. It wasn’t as glamorous as it was made out to be as you spent most of the flight being tossed around especially as planes began to get faster in the late 1920’s. Few people chose to fly commercially until Howard Hughes pioneered commercial aviation flights above the clouds.
I find it awful being treated like a criminal before I board.
It’s not just the air travel that was more genteel. Take a close look at the quality of commercial illustration and color engraving on those cards.
having to stand in long lines; forced to remove clothing; forced to hold a suspect post in the new scanners; alternatively, forced to be patted down by the authorities; packed into now always-full flights; decreasing seat space; decreasing food services; etc…
it’s pretty awful. bus travel is glamorous compared to air travel now.
Seriously? You’d rather take a two day bus trip from, say, LA to Dallas vs a two-hour flight? And have you been at a bus terminal lately? Generally not the most glamorous environment.
Yes, TSA’s security theater is frustrating; yes, there has been some erosion of creature comforts (I said as much in my original post); but for trips of more than, say, 300 miles, air travel is a pretty good deal.
Here’s the Louis CK bit if you haven’t seen it: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/1myllo/stand-up-louis-ck–the-miracle-of-flight