Trains, trains, trains.
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One would hope, but American long-haul passenger rail is a mess that may not get sorted in time. Amtrak still gives way to freight trains and high-speed rail is pathetic compared to that of Europe and other OECD countries.
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I’ll always remember a cartoon that George Booth did for the New Yorker: an airline pilot is being interviewed by a news crew on the tarmac in front of his jumbo jet, and he says “Some nut shot the piano player, but that seemed to be unconnected to the hijacking.”
EDIT: I see that Mr. Booth passed on a couple of months back at age 95. RIP.
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On AA it was a placard on top of one of the seat backs.
Also:
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When I was growing up, my dad worked for United Airlines, so I definitely remember having to get dressed up to fly (as an employee family, it was mandatory) and getting to hang out in the 747 upper deck lounge on a red-eye from ORD to SFO (for some reason there were only 8 people on the flight, so we all got upgraded to first class). I also remember the lack of any sort of barrier between smoking and non-smoking which I credit for my life-long loathing of cigarette smoking.
On occasion in the '80s my brother and I used to go into work with my dad and spend the day roaming the terminals at SFO. (Imagine letting your 12-year-old do that now!) We used to hunt down those luggage carts you’d rent for $1 and then get a quarter back when you returned them to the stand — lots of people wouldn’t bother to return them and their loss was our gain. We’d make around $30 in quarters which we’d blow on video games at the Atari Adventure Room arcade and on comic books from the airport bookstore.
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Oh yeah, I’d never claim that. But the cost of a flight has gone down by 90% (or more) in real money terms since the glamorous “golden age.” Airline flights may be more horrible than they need to be, but just making them cheaper was enough to remove the glamour (and as a side effect, transforming all the lounges, etc. into perks for “first class” passengers). It transformed something special, something that was a luxury (and which needed to be presented that way to sell) into the ordinary drudgery of getting from point A to point B. The massive increase in the number of people flying also helped make it suck for everyone (even the first class passengers, to a lesser degree), even as the first class experience, the closest thing to the old experience of flying, was also degraded for the sake of efficiency (and profit).
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Even shorter form:
MBAs
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I don’t remember finding the smell of cigarette smoke unusual on the plane, because I’d just come from a terminal building that allowed people to smoke inside, and before that I might have been on a bus with smokers. Pretty much everywhere you went was full of smoke, the aeroplane was no different.
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I remember when even domestic flights were “once in a lifetime” experience for most people, usually for the honeymoon. International flight was reserved for the high level business or the infamous “jet set”
Planes were noisy, they shacked a lot at the slightest sign of bad weather, travel involved long connections and stop overs and there was nothing to do onboard for hour after hour
That is why the gave away lots of booze and free food.
Nowadays air travel sucks as much as any other mass transport
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Yep
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Sometimes not even that - I remember a United flight where the row behind us was the start of the smoking section, and there was no curtain - just stink and a migraine. Feh!
That being said, flying was still nicer in many ways. We took Air Canada whenever we visited family back in Europe - we were right next to Niagara Falls and we would cross over to Canada and fly out of Toronto. I was quite young, but I do recall real silverware and pretty good meals, and sometimes the plane would be empty enough that you could find an unused row of seats, lift up the armrests and actually lie down to sleep.
Never saw a 747 lounge, though I wanted to. Air Canada flew DC8s and DC10s across the Atlantic, which were nice but didn’t have an upstairs, let alone a lounge. Sigh.
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Not sure if it was addressed in the video but if you’re willing and able to spend the money such luxury can still be found today on the Emirates A380. They have a lounge and even suites and showers available if you’ve got the cash.
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I prefer movie airplanes that have secret passages under the seats above the seats, basements with room to have fist fights, elevators, rear doors that have pulley systems for offloading passengers in flight, and snakes.
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As long as they’re trained to catch snakes I’m cool with them.
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Or even a cab.
(short story from my days working for [ISP]- I had gotten back in town, and on a lark, decided to get a limo home instead of a cab; was it expensive compared to a cab? Sure. did work complain about it when I expensed it? a little bit. Was it worth the look on my mother’s face when we pulled up to my house and I got out from there? Hell yes.)
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Depending on the details of the trip sometimes limos are actually cheaper.
Also, if you want to buy one they’re among the cheapest used cars available because no rich folks or limo services want old worn-out limos and few other people have any use for them. I have a wacky uncle who has owned a couple of them and used them for family road trips.
Here’s one that seats 12 and is available for just $3k:
https://miami.craigslist.org/brw/cto/d/fort-lauderdale-lincoln-town-car-super/7569892082.html
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And meanwhile, if you have the time, $5K will more than cover one-way transportation for 2 from NY to Southhampton, England, including all meals, gym access, and entertainment on a transatlantic crossing (7 days). I would never pay that much for a first class flight that lasts 4 - 6 hours, but for such an epic adventure, totally open to it.
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