Question for old timers

"rak" wrote:
It may still be possible in some places [to board with less than
20 minutes to flight time. I had to take a short domestic flight in
NZ from Wellington to Picton about 5 years back. snip

As long as we're talking about the obscure...
A few years back, I took what was technically a scheduled
airline in Alaska. When flying between Chitina and McCarthy,
you go to an airstrip with a small storage shack for a terminal,
the pilot checks your name off his list and you climb in.

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:21:47 -0700, "Mr. Travel" wrote:


And flying was not for the low of income unless you were flying
on business. Back around 1960 most students planning a summer in
Europe took a ship because airfare was so expensive. I recall
that Icelandic Air had the best fares because they weren't a
member of the trans-Atlantic regulatory body. They charged $300
US round trip, in prop planes that landed at Gander, Reykjavik,
Shannon, and finally (I think it was) Amsterdam. Adjusted for the
value of the dollar that would be $2112 in today's money.


Where do you get an non-compounded inflation rate of almost 15% per
year for 48 years from?

Uh, why would inflation not be at a compounded rate?

It would be, but the rate would no where match a non-compounded one of
almost 15%


How much was gas in 1960?

About 25 cents a gallon as I remember. But that is controlled by a
cartel and bears no relation to inflation. Rather, it is a major
contributor to it.

Mr. DBG wrote:
What was airport security like in, say, the mid 1970s?

My first flight was in 1991.

I've heard that there was practically NO security in the mid
1960s; that a person could even carry a firearm on board;
they usually just turned them over to an FA on boarding
and had them handed back at the end of the flight.

My guess is maybe metal detectors in the '70s.

Depends on the area. After all the Cuban hijackings in the 1960's there
started to be some security at airports like Miami.

In article ,
(John Kulp) wrote:


About 25 cents a gallon as I remember. But that is controlled by a
cartel and bears no relation to inflation. Rather, it is a major
contributor to it.

Not really. Actually only within the last 6 months or has oil gone up
to what it would have been had it been inflating along with the rest of
the economy. Through most of the last couple of decades, it has been
disinflationary if anything.

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:32:34 -0400, Kurt Ullman
wrote:

In article ,
(John Kulp) wrote:


About 25 cents a gallon as I remember. But that is controlled by a
cartel and bears no relation to inflation. Rather, it is a major
contributor to it.

Not really. Actually only within the last 6 months or has oil gone up
to what it would have been had it been inflating along with the rest of
the economy. Through most of the last couple of decades, it has been
disinflationary if anything.

True, but I meant now not in the past.

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:04:45 -0400, "Rog'"
wrote:

"rak" wrote:
It may still be possible in some places [to board with less than
20 minutes to flight time. I had to take a short domestic flight in
NZ from Wellington to Picton about 5 years back. snip

As long as we're talking about the obscure...
A few years back, I took what was technically a scheduled
airline in Alaska. When flying between Chitina and McCarthy,
you go to an airstrip with a small storage shack for a terminal,
the pilot checks your name off his list and you climb in.

At small airports with small airlines you can do lots of
unorthodox things, we shipped our daughter COD when
she had no money for the ticket.

In article ,
"Mr. DBG" wrote:

What was airport security like in, say, the mid 1970s?

My first flight was in 1970 when I was nine. It was out of PHL. As I
recall, airport security was pretty much non-existent. My parents and I
just checked our luggage in the departures area (pretty much the same as
now), and we walked to the gate. Then just before departure, we had to
walk across the tarmac to board the jet; there were no modern boarding
bridges between the aircraft and gates like there area now.

"Shawn Hirn" wrote:
[J]ust before departure, we had to walk across the tarmac
to board the jet; there were no modern boarding bridges
between the aircraft and gates like there area now.

My small local airport, GNV, installed three boarding bridges
in 2005, but I'm told, hasn't been using them. There's a barrel
full of umbrellas at the three gates in case of rain.

"James Robinson" wrote in message
. ..
"Jeff" wrote:

Even better, before Frank Lorenzo took over Continental and ran it
through bankruptcy to get rid of the unions in 1982, all tickets were
fully refundable.

Don't just blame it on Continental and Lorenzo. Pretty well all fares
prior to deregulation were refundable.

The concept of non-refundable fares came along with yield management,
which
was primarily a product of American Airline's Robert Crandall. They had
to
prevent people from buying cheap fares ahead of time, then trading them in
for higher priced fares if they needed to change flight times later on.

True, but deregulation occurred in 1978 and Lorenzo was the first one to
come up with non refundable airfares. I agree that Crandall was the
originator of yield management.

Rog' wrote:
"Shawn Hirn" wrote:
[J]ust before departure, we had to walk across the tarmac
to board the jet; there were no modern boarding bridges
between the aircraft and gates like there area now.

My small local airport, GNV, installed three boarding bridges
in 2005, but I'm told, hasn't been using them. There's a barrel
full of umbrellas at the three gates in case of rain.

I used stairs last year at GNV.

SJC still has stairs at the original terminal. I remember when Southwest
used rear stairs and front stairs in Burbank to speed boarding and
deplaning.

OTOH, I now have my mother and stepfather go to SFO rather than SJC,
because he has difficulty with the stairs. Also, the only non-plane
change flight from FLL to the bay area is to SFO on Jet Blue.