How else, you may ask, has the experience of flying changed since BA was born, 50 years ago? Firstly, airline passengers maintained a high standard of sartorial elegance, men invariably dressing up to travel in suits and brogues while women were chicly attired in cotton frocks and high heels. There was no laid-down dress code, but flying was an event, an occasion like going to the theatre, everything the Peter Stuyvesant cigarette ads of the time celebrated about the sophistication of air travel… and smoking.
These days international travellers arrive at Heathrow in casual wear – many in tracksuits and trainers, or even the dreaded onesie – reflecting not only the changes in our society but the fact that international air travel has become a rather mundane, everyday part of our lives. A bus service at 30,000 feet.
On the plus side, there has been a massive improvement in the in-flight entertainment. From the 1960s until well into the 1980s, it was worse than mediocre. Passengers in all classes were obliged to endure films chosen by anonymous airline executives or hired “media consultants” with questionable taste. These were shown on tiny pull-down screens at the front of every cabin. You could barely see what was going on and the sound quality was dreadful, delivered through plastic tubes that passed as earphones.
Needless to say in this digital age of seat-back screens, a dizzying choice of films, TV shows and documentaries, one is at least entertained during jam-packed long-haul flights. And jam-packed they are – seat pitch, not just on BA but all airlines, has diminished over the decades from an industry standard of around 34 inches to just 30 or 31.
Reflecting on BA’s 50 years, it is clear that major technological advances have improved the in-flight experience, but in other respects, modern demographic and economic demands have unavoidably lessened the enjoyment. The travelling public has grown in staggering numbers. In the year 2000, airlines carried 1.6 billion passengers across the planet, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA); five years later that number had grown to 2.1 billion; today it is well past 4 billion. Back in the golden age, there were tens of thousands, each paying dizzying sums for a ticket – so, of course, it was easier to give them plenty of legroom and silver service.
Furthermore, the golden age came before international terrorists began targeting air travel, thus passengers were not obliged to suffer through the tedious airport security checks that are the norm today. Back then, you simply showed your ticket and passport and sashayed onto the plane.
The opulent golden age is gone, and flying BA – unless you’re lucky enough to turn left as you board, would rarely be described as “glamorous”. Yet it, and other airlines, are efficiently moving record-breaking numbers of humans around the globe, in reasonable comfort, for relatively piffling sums of money when compared to previous eras, while maintaining unbelievably good safety records (2023 was the safest year in aviation history). In 50 years’ time, we may well be remembering this as the golden age of air travel.
