How did people buy airline tickets in the 60s?

In the olden days you would book your air travel through a travel agent. There was no online purchase, or advance seat assignment. You got a piece of paper which was your “ticket”. Check in at the airport was far more important than it is today - because then, and only then are you assigned your seats.



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An average ticket that used to cost $38 in 1963 ($299 with inflation) today cost $399 in 2015.

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Some planes were spacious and pressurized: the Boeing Stratocruiser, for example, could seat 50 first class passengers or 81 coach passengers compared to the DC-3's 21 passengers. People also forget that well into the 1960s, air travel was far more dangerous than it is today.

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Flying was becoming more commonplace in the 1960s, and it was less glamorous than in the previous decade. Flying became more and more common in the 1960s.

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Electronic ticketing paves the way for online check-in The first e-ticket was issued in 1994, and by 1997 IATA had adopted global standards for e-ticketing. In 2008, IATA announced 100% of ticketing was electronic, which meant that airlines no longer needed to produce physical tickets.

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Starting in 2003, many United States air carriers began eliminating free meal services in economy classes on North American flights and replacing them with buy on board services. In the 2000s US Airways (now part of American Airlines) briefly charged for soft drinks but then reversed course.

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Yes—and now they're called travel advisors. They could be more helpful than you may think. If the idea of using a travel agent to plan your next trip sounds like recommending a rotary phone to confirm your flight reservation, think again.

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Flights in the 1970s may well have been a lot more expensive, but passengers also got much more in terms of service. As airlines didn't set their own rates, they were guaranteed profits. As a result, with the money travelers paid, airlines were able to offer crystal glasses, complimentary champagne, and real cutlery.

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Of course, back in the 1950s, plane tickets could cost as much as three times (or more) than tickets do today, with prices adjusted for inflation. In that regard, modern air travel's lack of amenities seems to make sense.

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This crisis forced airlines to search for ways to save on fuel costs, which led to a gradual reduction in cruising speeds. For example, the Boeing 707, a popular airliner in the 1960s, had a cruising speed of around 600 mph (966 km/h).

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Cruising speeds for commercial airliners now range between about 480 and 510 knots, compared to 525 knots for the Boeing 707 during the 1960's, according to a 2014 article from the MIT School Of Engineering.

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In USA, it is probably in late 1970s, when Southwest Airlines was born. Not only the poor ones, the rich would find hard-pressed if they ever had to “dress up” for the occassion when flying with peanut airlines.

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Americans were wild about aviation in the 1920s and '30s, the period between the two world wars that came to be known as the Golden Age of Flight. Air races and daring record-setting flights dominated the news. Airplanes evolved from wood-and-fabric biplanes to streamlined metal monoplanes.

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