Jet passenger service began in the United States in the late 1950s with the introduction of Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 airliners. Some 707 flights were all-first class, others all tourist class, and others a mix separated by partitions. The jet engine revolutionized air travel.
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At the end of 1960 the jet age in scheduled air trans- portation was two years old. Despite the fact, as shown in the text and tables, the industry flew more people, more goods and more mail than ever before, the financial picture for 1960 was dis- couraging from the profit standpoint.
The next largest (but substantially smaller) carriers in 1950 were, in order, Northwest, Capital, Delta, National, Braniff, Western, Chicago & Southern, Mid-Continent, and Continental. Some of those airlines were later acquired by others, some went bankrupt, and a few emerged stronger, especially Delta.
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 was a DC-4 propliner operating its daily transcontinental service between New York City and Seattle when it disappeared on the night of June 23, 1950.
1952: A de Havilland Comet, flying for British Overseas Airways Corporation, becomes the first jet aircraft to enter commercial service, carrying passengers from London to Johannesburg, South Africa. The early Comet was a four-engine aircraft, roughly the size of a small Boeing 737.
At Tenerife's Los Rodeos Airport, a KLM Boeing 747 initiated takeoff without air traffic control clearance and smashed into a Pan Am 747 waiting on the runway, resulting in 583 fatalities. No one aboard the KLM aircraft survived, and only 71 people escaped from the Pan Am wreckage.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the average domestic roundtrip base airfare in 1990 cost $288 or $554 in today's dollars.