Airline travel - 50 years ago:

The recent thread about Red Bull's DC-6 got me to take out a reminder of my first-ever airplane flight; as I said in the other thread, I just barely missed the propliner era. My first flight in June 1960 was on an Eastern Air Lines "Golden Falcon" DC-8 from San Juan, PR to what was still called Idlewild Airport in New York.

A few years ago, I managed to buy a timetable that would have contained that flight in it, and I decided to do some scanning. Note that Eastern referred to their jets as "DC-8B", a designation that was not official but was descended from similar terminology used on DC-6s and DC-7s. The aircraft were officially DC-8-20, analogous to Boeing's B-707-220 (which were only used by Braniff), which combined the original non-intercontinental airframe with the larger JT4 (J75) engines slated to be used on the longer-range DC-8-30.

The route map reminds us that in the regulated days, there were no national route systems like there are today. Even the coast-to-coast carriers like TWA still had relatively regionalized route networks otherwise. Also note the small towns still served by the major carriers: places like Anderson, SC, Ocala, FL and Waycross, GA.

The actual schedules were still presented railroad-style; the "quick-reference" from-to layout was still years in the future. Since there was only one DC-8 flight listed for SJU-IDW, that flight 800 must have been the one I took. Note the time: only 3 hours and 15 minutes, versus 6:05 for the DC-6s operating all of the other flights!

(If you look in a current schedule, SJU-JFK is likely to be more like 4 hours. I attribute that to two factors. One is that schedules in those days were not "padded" to allow for expected ground delays; today that is usually built in. Secondly, the jets were probably flown at what we would call "maximum cruise speed", since jet fuel was cheap and the airlines were trying to impress the public as to how fast the jets were. Today, with the high cost of fuel, the airlines are more likely to fly at "economical cruise speed", which is undoubtedly slower.)

The regulated airfares were limited in number and didn't change often, so they could be listed. It's a bit hard to read, so I'll tell you that SJU-NYC was $189 round-trip for first class, $135.20 for coach, and $90 for what is referred to as "SPR" or "Special Puerto Rico" fare, which was some sort of restricted fare which might have been the first "super-saver" fare similar to most of today's discounted fares. And the coach class is what would be referred to today as "full-fare coach". I do know that the three fares were called F, Y and K. The fares may seem quite low, but remember, we're talking 1960 dollars! One calculator I checked says that the equivalents in today's dollars would be: $1375, $984 and $655!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

As an Atlantan now, I'm intrigued by the only flight listed for SJU-ATL. It was a DC-7 "night coach" which required 6:40 on the clock with stops in both Miami and St. Petersburg, with a layover in Miami of over an hour! Talk about not being able to be in a hurry! I hope that they charged less for that than a faster flight would have been.