The Good Old Days of Air Travel

The New York Times has an Opinionator piece here linking the similarity between first class airline travel today and the growing divide in our country between the rich and the middle class.  I don't usually write about air travel in this blog, but this piece I found to be so clueless in its description of air travel forty years ago that I couldn't resist commenting.

Ah yes, the good old days, when flight attendants had to be young, female, white, and thin--so they looked sexy for the (mostly) male passengers.  Who wouldn't be nostalgic for that time?

Sure, I'd like a little more leg room, but I find virtually all of the flight attendants to be courteous and helpful now, even though most are not young, white, female and thin.  On my last flight across country, a male attendant was busy lifting suitcases up into the overhead for the passengers.  An appreciated service.  White gloves:  not so much.

And I like buying food ahead of time, or packing my own.  I flew in the time when our tickets were more expensive because food was included.   I don't really miss the  cardboard chicken.

I do think all of the different boarding groups--and the red carpet--are pretty comical.  Elite status, elite plus gold diamond status, platinum poodle ruby status--it's always my laugh for the day.