Posted on Aug 20, 2013

Air Travel: Then Vs. Now

Before people were doing this: #upintheair.

by Leonora Epstein

BuzzFeed Staff

Then: Playing cards at 30,000 feet in 1936.

Now: Touchscreens you pray work with movies that cost a fortune.

Then: Passing through a metal detector in 1972.

Now: The feeling of dirty linoleum on your bare feet as you wait for someone to see an X-ray picture of your naked body.

Then: Passengers waiting for cross-channel flights operated by Britain's Silver City Airways in 1956.

Now: Airports where everything looks the same. You could be anywhere.

Then: Coach class in the '60s! So much room!

Now: UGHGHGHHGHGHHGHG.

Then: Manual labor at Washington International Airport in 1942.

Now: Digital.

Then: Folks dressed in their Sunday best in First Class in 1955.

Now: Don't even care.

Then: Lighting up inside the cabin in 1955.

Now: Oh hellz no.

Then: Cocktails on Pan Am in 1958. What service!

Now: DIY.

Then: Passengers traveling from Mexico to Los Angeles go through "customs" in 1930. Is this a joke?

Now: See you at Never O'Clock.

Then: Sleepers on a Pan Am flight in 1936.

Now: Ain't half shabby if you have a gazillion dollars.

Then: A 1934 sleeping compartment on board an American Airways flight.

Now: Try to make it work.

Then: A Pan Am cockpit in 1950. Super complicated!

Now: Still super complicated!

Then: Super feminine ladies we called stewardesses.

Now: Classy men and women we call flight attendants.

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