Your first airline flight

[ExFlyBoy5]

Yep...remember it well..convinced me that I wanted to be around airplanes..and that's what I did.

Mid 1980s on a Pan Am 737-200; MIA to ATL. I still have the N number written on the ticket.

 

[Clone]

First flight was in college on University airplane. I had won a paper competition, and they flew several faculty and myself to a conference to present at the regional or national level. A few years later I was on a flight to Los Angeles for an interview with Rockwell Aviation. I would have been 22 years old.

Times have changed! My kids flew many times when they were growing up, starting at around one year old. I don't think I even left the state where I was born until third grade, and that was on a school bus!

 

[2017ish]

Was in 86 or 87, for work. Wet behind the ears lawyer flying to another city to assist in defense of client airplane manufacturer. Stuck in memory because of stewardess' reaction to my reading material: NTSB report on the crash I was to be involved with for the next many months ....

 

[FireBug]

1963 Standard airways (Pink Cloud Air). SFO to Honolulu. I believe it was a DC-4.

 

[EastWest Gal]

7/31/78. Flew American from SF to NYC on a red eye. Toured NYC all day. Then flew Lot airlines to Warsaw overnight. Sat all day in the airport. Flew Lot that evening to Moscow. The next morning we were up at 6AM to start a 30 day tour of the USSR and Poland. I was with a teen square dance group of 54 dancers, 11 chaperones. My sister and a boyfriend were on the trip.

Very special trip in more ways than one. The rehearsals for the trip and the trip put me in close proximity with DH, though we didn't start dating for another two and a half years.

That dance group now gets together monthly to square dance. We have moved away, however.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Rummy]

Age 16 in June of 1967. Qantas Airways headed to OZ as an exchange student. Total bewilderment after landing in Sydney and realizing you're halfway around the world and don't know a soul. But what a fantastic year!

Rummy

 

[Golden sunsets]

I think my first was in 1973 from Boston to London, for pleasure. I don't recall for sure but suspect it was TWA. The one I remember most though from way back days was from Presque Isle Maine to Portland Me ona 10 seater for work. One of my colleagues brought on board a 100 LB sack of Aroostook potatoes to bring back home and that sack had to be removed from the plane because it weighed too much and endangered the flight. Geesh!

 

[Big_Hitter]

1982, IAH to Logan on Delta, visit to Brown Univ

 

[Revlefty]

1967; TWA to Israel.

 

[akck]

First flight was in the 60's on United I believe. The only thing notable was that the hot meal came with a small pack of cigarettes (2-3). I'm guessing the designated smoking section was the whole plane then..

 

[gcgang]

Probably around 1962. I don't remember my first flight, but I remember that there was (machine?) "flight insurance" commonly sold.

 

[nuke_diver]

Air Canada 1975 to Spain. I was over the moon excited. It was like going in a rocket ship for me. I never thought I would get to fly (small town kid). Flying isn't the same anymore

 

[Eagle43]

1960, New Orleans to San Antonio, for basic training. Can't remember the airline.

Sent from my SM-T810 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Swissair 1967 ZRH-GVA. Remember it well - sat in the smoking part (back of the plane) and nearly suffocated.... incredible that anyone thought smoking in an airplane was a good idea. Anyway, Swissair went belly-up and ultimately got picked up by Lufthansa. Another thing I remember about Swissair: free chocolates

Swissair is now Swiss International and is owned, yes by Lufthansa. They still give out the free chocolates! Great, competent airline. But pricey.

 

[COcheesehead]

United Air to LA from Milwaukee. 4 years old. I don't remember much, but I was given a pair a plastic wings and an "activity" book that I played with for years after. Airlines don't do that anymore.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Early summer, 1973, closing in on my 18th birthday. The US Navy flew me and another boy from my school to Norfolk to try to persuade us to enlist and go to OCS. It was more of a lark than anything; we earch were accepted to our university of choice, but we went with mostly open minds and in awe of the attention we were getting.

We flew in a small Navy issue turbo prop with zero amenities on board. I remember the recruiter who flew with us had to keep assuring us that the rather violent turbulence was nothing to worry about; but to "be prepared for anything, boys". Yikes. But kinda thrilling.

It was cool to see Norfolk and the the buildings/homes constructed for the 1908 Jamestown exhibition (I think I have the date right). They gave us beer and we stayed in a barracks on base. I have absolutely no memory of their pitch during our weekend stay.

Are they still flying? I'm pretty sure the US Navy is still in business, yes.

Otherwise, I remember early flights on TWA among other now defunct airlines and being able to smoke at my seat on flights! Now I look back and shudder at the danger of it all.

-BB

 

[Bestwifeever]

My first must have been when I was a toddler and my family moved from overseas to the Midwest, on PanAm. My last flight was just this week, when I looked down as the Southwest plane neared Midway Airport and realized we were flying directly over my house. Pretty cool.

 

[Lakewood90712]

First flight for a child today ?

 

[RE2Boys]

First air flight was in 1968 aboard an Air Force, C54 while a ROTC cadet in college. Philipsburg, PA to Wright-Pat AFB near Dayton, OH

 

[lucky penny]

NYC to Copenhagen on SAS, summer of 1966. I was in college and won a competition to spend a month in NYC working on a magazine, and the "work" included a week's trip to Denmark and Sweden. Incredible luck that changed my life.

 

[skipro33]

I flew on Pan-Am from St. Louis to San Francisco with my dad to attend my grandfather's funeral. Everyone dressed up; men is suits, women in dresses. Just like it was church. They allowed smoking on board, had a bar even and a lounge as I recall. Meals were elegant. Everything back then about flying was elegant. Now? It's all strictly 3rd world with the gestapo TSA hurding the masses along so much reminding me of when I watched WWII movies in school about the Nazi concentration camps. When did flying turn into something so ugly?

 

[razztazz]

When did flying turn into something so ugly?

I noticed an abrupt deterioration in the experience as soon as they deregulated airlines

I can't address the TSA effect since my most recent flights have been once in early 2002 before there was much impact and once in 2004. Didn't seem much different than previous anti-hijack screening but I'm sure much has changed in 12 years and I have no intention of ever finding out what or how much

But the change from elegant to cattle-car/shut up and be glad you're flying at all happened almost immediately after they deregulated the airlines

 

[ziggy29]

My first flight wasn't until about 1990, and it was a business trip from San Jose to John Wayne (Orange County) on American.

 

[tinlizzy]

1987 to Charleston SC. I was 20. The plane was only about 1/2 full and there was a smoking section in the back!


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Meadbh]

I remember when the four rows of business class had non-smoking (rows 1 and 2) and smoking (rows 3 and 4) sections. Economy started in row 5 with the non-smoking section, with smoking aft. Row 5 was horrible as the smoke from business class drifted back and the smell was in the upholstery.

The fist time I flew transatlantic (1980, on Capitol Airways, long since gone), I was in nonsmoking over the wing. A woman immediately in front of me lit up. I immediately called the flight attendant, who ordered her to extinguish her cigarette. She was furious.

Those were the days!