Yes Virginia, airplanes once had piano-bar lounges in coach

[SoCalDem]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdvw4jYqJdw

along the right side are many other commercials from the era showing how airlines once competed by outdoing each other with passenger comforts..




lots of fun chitchat and more old pictures at http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/3296193/

and at

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/unroadwarrior/2010/07/21/the-747-piano-bar/

[MineralMan]

1. And that didn't last long at all. They put seats in those spaces

very quickly.

[hlthe2b]

2. I like the fact that flight attendents used to COOK to order...

including fresh eggs for breakfast... Gee what we've lost... Now we don't even get the whole can of coke if they serve you anything to drink at all. :eyes:

[piratefish08]

13. you get a can of coke? ELITE!

[hlthe2b]

15. No... I got a three ounce cup of diet coke with great begrudgement...

on a three 1/2 hour flight... I know, I know... I'm asking for the world to get the other nine ounces.... After all, that can of diet coke costs $0.40 at Safeway.... It must surely cost the airlines $40.00 right? :eyes:

[RockaFowler]

3. I haven't flown in so long - this is how I remember it

And I was a kid flying in the 70's. Back in the 80's we flew to Hawaii aboard a DC-10 (very comfy) from Detroit. They gave us 3 meals, blankets, pillows and in-flight movies at no extra cost. My Dad brought his golf clubs. We had at least 6 suitcases between the 4 of us at no extra cost. The flight crew even invited us inside the cockpit for a tour. Those were the days of flying. They actually cared about us the customers. Today - not so much.

[FLPanhandle]

4. Can you imagine being on a long flight near the piano?

I'm glad that idea died fast.

[WinkyDink]

5. I flew on 747's trans-Atlanttic from 1973-1999 and never saw a lounge in Coach!

SwissAir, KLM, Lufthansa, Sabena, Virgin, and Air France: Nothing!

[SoCalDem]

9. not all routes had them

I was on a UAL flight from ORD/SEA with one, and on an AAL flight to LAX with one..

I flew JFK/SJU first class once & woweeee ehat a treat.

It was Pan Am's inaugural 747 flight to SJU.. I even sat in the copilot seat

what a trip! We all took turns in the copilot seats..:)

I was one of 12 travel agents on a "fam" trip & they treated us like royalty

[dana_b]

10. on the TWA planes they were upstairs

the stairs that are just behind the first class cabin. I believe they got rid of the lounge mid 70s.

[SoCalDem]

11. Most upper lounges were way too small

Pan Am's had couches (think Casbah) & drapes & a few pong tables.. no room for pianos..and the cockpit was up there too.. open-door.. It was cool to stand in the doorway & watch the pilots fly that beast:)

[dana_b]

27. ping pong? cool!!

yeah - I was a TWA flight attendant for 5 years (mid 80s to early 90s) and this is what the old time flight attendants told me. I saw one picture and the only seating was along the sides of the cabin. Now it's all about squeezing every last millimeter out of the seating as possible.

[SoCalDem]

29. No... Pong.. the precurser to today's video games

[dana_b]

37. ha! omg - I remember that game.

nice picture.

[liberal N proud]

6. And were treated like a customer

The passengers acted civil and you were required to dress professionally.

I long for those days of travel.

[Hangingon]

8. I long for those times too.

Too bad they are gone. People now dress down to fly.

[closeupready]

12. And take off their shoes and put up their bare stinking unhygienic feet for everyone to see.

:mad: :puke:

[dmallind]

22. Why the hell should transportation have a dress code?

Unless you are anorexic, wearing any additional layer of clothing in coach is asking for it to be creased to hell from constant rubbing against other passengers and crew, not to mention the wasted time and indignity of removing jacket, shoes belt, watch, etc and pushing them on a filthy conveyor belt to get through the grope-nazi gauntlet. Damn right I wear nothing more than work-out wear with no belts/metal at all and no lace-up shoes to go through that cattle-car torture when I have to. What's so damn special about one type of vehicle that I have to approach traveling in it as if it were a board meeting or funeral?

[SoCalDem]

24. Once upon a time, most people did not "need" a "dress code"

to dress with some vestige of appropriateness:)

[dmallind]

25. Appropriate to WHAT? Sitting in a seat going somewhere? nt

[FLPanhandle]

23. I'm taking an all night-er to Paris on Sunday

Screw dressing up. I'll be in sweatpants and sweat shirt so I can sleep comfortably.

[Zywiec]

35. Yeah, it's always easy to pick out Americans from Europeans. n/t

[FLPanhandle]

36. So we should emulate Europeans?

Nah, I don't care if someone can identify me as an American. I am an American.

[WinkyDink]

51. Bon voyage!!

I recommend the Abelard et Heloise restaurant on the Left Bank!

[FLPanhandle]

58. Great thanks.

I was looking for ideas too, so great timing. :hi:

[NYC Liberal]

26. That's partially thanks to the airlines.

They pack us like sardines and cram as many people as they possibly can into the tiny space of an airplane. Who is going to dress up when you're crammed into a confined space like that?

[jberryhill]

38. And more thanks to the customers

Who will select the cheapest ticket available, period. That's the market.

Take any domestic United flight any day of the week. They have an "economy plus" ticket that is anywhere from $25 to $50 more, and provides extra legroom. Even with that marginal price difference, the rest of coach is filled with customers from Expedia, Priceline, etc., who bought the cheapest ticket they could find from point A to point B.

[w4rma]

7. Stockholders / investors / executives require corners to be cut for larger pieces of that pie. (nt)

[KeepItReal]

14. Domestic legacy carriers act as if they hate their customers

I received 2 "discount" certificates for air travel on Continental because I have their credit card.

When I tried to use the "discount" I ran into dead end after dead end.

When I reviewed the fine print, I saw that you could not use the discount on flights on Fridays or Sundays.

To add insult to injury, the rules say the discount cannot be applied on discounted (cheapest) coach airfares. So it literally is cheaper for you to just buy a cheap coach ticket than use the "discount" on a higher priced coach fare class that it applies to.

I'm starting to hate the corporate bean counters that create twisted schemes like this.

[AngryAmish]

16. Damn you Carter with your deregulating the airlines!

[indurancevile]

19. bingo. and the end result, as expected: worse service, industry concentration,

and eventually, rising prices.

not to mention all the war on terror stuff.

[FLPanhandle]

28. and only the well to do could fly.

Compare ticket prices adjusted for inflation to todays prices (even with baggage fees). The cost of flying back then was huge and it was a special event.

[indurancevile]

30. I lived in that era & it isn't true that only the well-to-do could fly.

flying was more expensive and not used for routine travel, but it's not the case that it was reserved for the "well-to-do".

check out chart 4 at this link. deregulation occurred in 1978. fare prices actually declined more steeply in the preceding era of regulation (1960-1978). The decline 1978 - 1998 was less. and was derived from turning flying into a miserable experience mostly.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/03/art3full.pdf

[FLPanhandle]

33. Cool Paper

Lots of data in there. However, the paper itself says

"During regulation, from 1969 to 1978, average per-mile ticket
costs, adjusted for inflation using the CPI, fell 2.2 percent per
year. After deregulation, real prices fell at only a slightly faster
rate, 2.3 percent. (See chart 4.) While the airliner was no longer
changing so substantially to produce more economical operations,
price competition was occurring. According to one respected
source, deregulation was responsible for 58 percent
of the price cuts from 1978 to 1993 and made fares 22 percent
lower than they would have been without deregulation.

So, from the paper, we are paying 22 percent less for a ticket now than we would have.

[indurancevile]

40. airline regulation didn't begin in 1969, but in 1938. notice the dates on the

chart & the steeper curve 1960-69.

so that factoid is cherry-picked. and also doesn't speak to the claim that flying was out of reach but for the well to do.

the price of flying went down faster under regulation.

[indurancevile]

46. cherry-picking also to compare a 9-year period (1969-1978) with a 14 year period

(1979-1993).

prices went down more under regulation. you know why? because even though they reduced personnel, cut back on safety & packed people in like sardines -- the prices didn't go down proportionally. it went to profits.

[Evasporque]

17. why do you hate sporks so much...? nt

[Turn CO Blue]

18. Sorry. RANT ON! the average fare for New York to LA

was over $1200 in 1974 - THAT WAS THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO AND THE FARE WAS TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS - THAT IS A FACT!!!! That was what? two month's salary back then to make the trip. That was what an entire automobile cost back then.

What is that in today's money adjusted for inflation??? Like $3600? The average New York to Los Angeles fare is about $400 in 2011.

The average gate agent made over $28K per year in the 1980's and it was a highly competitive and sought-after career (not a job). The average gate agent now makes about $10 an hour in 2011.

Four factors have lead to the decrease in amenities and service quality for air travelers:

lower union membership (leads to tiny wages and clerk mentality instead of professionalism)

incredibly low fares (tiny, tiny profit margins of about $400 per flight - you couldn't DRIVE from New York to LA for less than $600 and yet a one million pound aircraft and 1000 working people are supposed to get the average 180 pound person there factoring in the jet fuel burn quite safely for the equivalent of two to four days' salary )

very high volume of available seats for identical routes/times (which is good for competition but bad for stability, reliability and safety)

and the elimination of travel agents who successfully marketed and promoted the idea of "vacation with style and luxury" instead of moo-cows being shuffled onto a plane and into a cheap motel on the side of town.

There are no amount of modern technological advances or processes or economies in scale that can make up for the lack of profit per ticket these days.

We have lost how many great airlines and great aviation career professionals in the last decade??? This is why.

[FLPanhandle]

21. Also before de-regulation; prices were controlled.

The only things the airlines could compete on were service.

Now they compete on price because the public will buy the cheapest seat regardless of service.

[leveymg]

48. Along with deregulation, however, has come increased subsidies to air travel

So, as ticket costs have dropped, overall, revenues have grown dramatically as have federal support for the airlines.

Socialization of costs, privatization of profits.

[SoCalDem]

56. and allowed the bigger ones to cannibalize all the smaller ones

thousands of communities lost airports/ flight services, in exchange for 14 flights to Boston at 5PM...from an airport an hour's drive away:(

[RevStPatrick]

20. I don't remember pianos on airplanes...

...but I certainly remember smoking on airplanes.
I'm also a member of the mile-high club.
Haven't flown in quite a few years, however...

[Blue_Tires]

31. I didn't know if you had already seen this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1581362

[SoCalDem]

32. yep.. I saw it the other day.. Have you ever watched the documentary

about Sabena's demise.. If you ever get a chance, watch it.. It's a great film..
the same circumstances played out a LOT during the unraveling of the airline industry that was:(

[Blue_Tires]

34. I'll check it out

I know it was tied into that whole SwissAir mess and the shadiness related to it...

[GSLevel9]

39. I was on a Ural Air flight from Domodedevo to Ekaterinburg in 2000

on an IL-86

We boarded up through the belly and were fed the yummiest hot plane food I've ever had, even better than US Business/First Class. And I was in Coach class. It was only a 2-3 hr flight... and the food came in a foil tray (like 1980's TV dinners) and were served some blini on the side with beer.

[backscatter712]

41. Remember the amenities that were supposed to come with the Airbus 380?

This is just a few short years ago. They were supposed to have full-service bars, office suites, showers, casinos, duty-free shops...

Of course, reality intervened, and they just crammed the big birds full of more seats.

[Cannikin]

43. Are any of you pilots or frequent travelers made uneasy by the photos of people up and about?

I never take my seatbelt off in flight unless I really need to use the lav.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

42. I remember being fascinated as a kid by the "basement" on PSA's L1011's

Especially since it more or less looked exactly like my grandparents basement:

[RB TexLa]

44. I just want to get on the plane in one city and get off the plane in another

[KT2000]

45. My father was an

engineer and Boeing rep on the first Atlantic flight of the Yankee Clipper (flew 1934). This was the first plane able to cross the Pacific and Atlantic and was the start of air mail to Europe. Prior it had gone on ocean liners.
They had sleeping berths, a dining room and their regular seating. The attendents, stewardesses then, had to be nurses. Clare Booth Luce called it the next generation of traveling elegance!!

Things have really changed - it is Greyhound with jet engines now.

[Prometheus Bound]

47. I flew Nigerian Airlines in 1978 from Kano to Maiduguri.

The planes were all overbooked, so it was first come, first served. They opened the door and it was a race across the tarmac to the plane steps. The last 5 or 10 were out of luck. They served the scrawniest chicken you've ever seen and didn't pick up the trays, so people put them in the aisle when landing. It was a steep landing, so the chicken bones and trays all piled up near the front. What a mess getting out.

I guess my point is that air travel wasn't always better in the old days.

[Blue_Tires]

49. fwiw, the A380 also has a lounge for some airlines:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4peiyZRJ7Jk

I flew the 744 back from Germany last summer and it was incredibly cramped...Felt like a dungeon compared to the 777 I rode over there...

[Nye Bevan]

50. So how many DUers would pay an extra $150 per ticket for a piano bar?

No, me neither.

[joeglow3]

52. Good. I am glad they did away with these "perks"

How much would a flight today cost if they had these? How many millions could NEVER think to afford a flight anywhere.

Frankly, the current system is the most fair: provide a relatively cheap fare with NO perks and allow people to pay ala cart for the perks they want. This way, people are paying for their usage of the unnecessary items (not forcing everyone to pay for the usage of a few) and those who otherwise could not afford a flight, now can afford a bare bones flight without things like piano bars pricing them out.

[blueamy66]

53. Loved flying in 747s to Honolulu back in the day.

Nothing like first class and going upstairs.....thx to flying non-rev!

I miss those days.

[SoCalDem]

57. JFK-San Juan on Pan Am's Inaugural 747 flight..First Class

Talk about ooh-la-la..

The one and ONLY time I every flew first class..(It was free because the whole first class section was reserved for our Travel Consultant group)

Every flight after that, made me a little sad, because I knew how comfy it was on the other side of the curtain:)

[blueamy66]

59. Oh yeah....

After my Dad passed away, I lost all of my non-rev flight privileges.

But I still have the great memories. :-)

[Buns_of_Fire]

54. Yes, it's true that Nekkid Airlines (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pitchforks 'R' Us) doesn't have a

piano bar, but we DO offer the next-best thing:

In the passageway between coach and first class, we've hung a transistor radio from a string. For a mere $5 charge, we let you change the channel ($10 if you change it to a Disco-only channel, $2.50 if you change it FROM a Disco-only channel).

[LeftinOH]

55. I thought aircraft lounges only existed in disaser movies.. you know,

the piano bar where all the "important" people gather (pre-crisis) for plot exposition: A black guy plays the piano and a pretty chanteuse with a shady past warbles a song about lost love. On a nearby barstool, George Kennedy nurses a drink, etc.