When I started flying for an airline in 1987, we turned off the “NO SMOKING” light as soon as the landing gear retracted and didn’t turn it on again until descending through 10,000 feet. The back of the airplane was a fog of smoke and the outflow valves at the back of the airplane had a long streak of brown goop running back from them on the fuselage.
The company used a huge whiteboard to keep track of the airplanes and where they were. It took days for the company to assign trips to crews from month to month and trading trips was rare. The same flight attendants and pilots would fly a whole month together. People rarely changed trips around.
I started as an engineer on a B-727. I had a huge (bigger than a phone book) book of charts that had all of the airplane performance in graphs and tables for all the runways we were likely to ever use. If the captain asked how long we could hold or how much fuel we’d use to divert, I would break out the book and figure out the right speed and fuel flow and then compute the holding time available with my pocket calculator. Today, there’s an FMC computer by my right hand that can compute anything I need in seconds compared to the 10 minutes it took before.
At a distant island base, the engineers did all the load planning and weight and balance computations. These would be duplicated with carbon paper and I would keep one for the airplane and after pushback, the captain would place the other copy on a clip tied to a rope and hang it out the window for the agent to retrieve.
We used LORAN to navigate over ocean; it worked okay but was frequently spotty. It was kind of scary to see the alarm lights flashing late at night. We’d just hold our heading until we got another signal. Our airplanes didn’t have inertial navigation. We also used ADF for navigation – basically a static-filled AM radio receiver with an arrow pointing to the station. It was inaccurate and if there was lightning around, the arrow pointed to the lightning. I didn’t like to use it. Nowadays, they don’t even install ADF receivers in airliners.
A few of our airplanes had a hole in the top of the cockpit fuselage where a sextant could be placed in order to see stars and navigate celestially. I never was taught how to do it. Here’s a picture of it but not from our aircraft.
We had fewer ways to communicate with the ground. We had our ATC radios of course but to contact the company had a terrible network of links that would patch us through to a dispatcher or mechanic. It was so slow and painful that we very rarely did it. Nowadays, I have a keyboard and can text dispatch very easily and they’ll forward it to the appropriate person and get us an answer right away.
Weather forecasting was weak especially over the Atlantic and Pacific. Nowadays, I have much more trust in the weather forecasts. The art has really come a long ways. I’ve not had unexpected weather in a long time.
The older airliners were much less reliable than they are today. We had frequent mechanical delays and cancellations. We rarely dispatched a 727 with a completely clean logbook. Something was always broken. Now a clean logbook is the norm.
We were sort of computerized for passenger services but they would frequently have problems assigning seats. So the agents would use a grease pencil and a white board to cross off each seat as it was assigned. Today, it’s a lot better, but we still get duplicated seats. I don’t understand it.
The food we served to the passengers was only slightly better than it is now. Back then it was mostly a hot meal served in foil. It wasn’t good then and it isn’t good now.
Fatal airline accidents were much more common. Even though we flew less, we crashed more. The last time a US Boeing or Airbus crashed was in November of 2001. That’s a long time.
we all carried our flight bag and suitcase wherever we went. It’s hard to believe that wheeled luggage hadn’t been invented yet. It was surprisingly tiring.
The airplanes used a LOT more fuel. We would often have to make stops to refuel due to high winds. I haven’t done that in decades. In fact, a 787 burns about the same amount of fuel per hour as a 727 but the 787 can carry over 100 more passengers and fly from Denver to Tokyo non-stop. A 727 could make it a little farther than Denver/Atlanta.
Passengers could be just as rude and difficult as they are today. Nothing has changed. People are still people. 1% of the people spoil it for everyone else.
There was less air traffic, but we still were plagued by holding patterns and diversions for weather. The system has grown with the traffic.
There has always been one flight attendant for every fifty passengers just like now. There are a few inches less legroom than before but the seat width is the same as it has ever been.
Baggage was routinely misrouted back then. Whole carts of luggage would end up at the wrong airport. Today, with hand scanners, the baggage counts are almost always right on the money and mishandled bags are much more rare.
Security was loose, there were metal detectors and baggage scanning, but it was pretty low key. Passengers would beep the detectors and then just get a quick once-over with a wand. Baggage was very rarely searched. Flight crews would usually be able to avoid security by flashing their ID. Nowadays, we can still bypass it but it’s much more controlled. After the Lockerbie bombing, international security got a lot tougher. 9/11 upgraded security domestically.
Flying was more expensive for the passengers then. Discount airlines like People Express and Southwest were shaking up the market for cheap tickets. The major airlines were trying to respond but weren’t getting much traction. The price of travel continues to fall.
In short, flying is a lot safer and cheaper than it has ever been. Service has suffered in some cases but I don’t remember it being great in 1987, people and comedians still complained bitterly about the flying experience back then. Bob Newhart had a particularly funny bit.
I think flying has improved over the last 30 years.
Author – Randy Duncan
Airline Pilot, Boeing 737, One of the U.S. majors.
