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The Wanderer

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Air travel used to be cool

Posted: May 1st, 2010 | By Paul Ash


airtravelromance

Following my post on the name Lufthansa has chosen for its A380 double-deckers, I dug around for some images from the airline’s past, back in the day when air travel really was cool and all you had to do was advertise it.

I really like the poster (above) trumpeting Lufthansa’s trans-Atlantic routes. The aircraft is a Lockheed Constellation, itself something of a design icon. The routes, reaching across to the Americas and to the Middle East, shout “ROMANCE” and “ADVENTURE”.

747ST

Fast forward 25 years or so and we see air travel taking a form most of us recognise – coach section on a Lufthansa 747. It’s a bit more crowded but hey, everyone’s smiling and those 70s colours really do lift the mood.

I particularly like the woman with the newspaper: she’s reading the Sunday Times and the lead story is about South African Airways getting its first Boeing 747 “Jumbo Jets”. Nice.

  
 
 

Comments

 

Travel Veda

May 2, 2010 at 8:04 am

Thus, internet is a complete solution to give you a luxurious and memorable travel experience at peace of mind.

 

Top Travel

May 2, 2010 at 8:18 am

It is nice to see this pic of old times. Taking me back to my younger age…

 

SAA Eeek

May 2, 2010 at 3:36 pm

To bad SAA is still using the same planes to this day.

A friend on the way to Europe this week had 4 flight delays on SAA. One plane had an engine that would not even start and they were on the plane for 5 hours before being told to try again tomorrow.

 

John B

May 2, 2010 at 8:43 pm

That woman’s not smiling – she’s nervous – Lufthansa had the first ever 747 write-off at Nairobi in the mid-70s – pilots made an arse of the flap settings on take-off thereby stalling and crashing the plane. She smiles a bit like Gordon Brown … hmm, I have an idea…

 

Paul Ash

May 3, 2010 at 10:12 am

That’s right – the aircraft was 747 “Hessen”. There was no way of seeing from the cockpit that the leading edge slats were deployed and this was crucial for take off at gross weight from a hot and high airport such as Nairobi. The aircraft stalled on take off and crashed in an inferno. A family friend was aboard – just before take-off, he moved one row forward. His boss and every other person in the rows behind him – except for one lucky man – were killed in the crash.

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  • About

    Dispatches and reports from the road, with a bit of eccentricity on the side. I am deputy-editor of Sunday Times Travel Weekly.