Commercial air travel has come a long way since the “Golden Age of Travel” — an era marked by glamour, gourmet food and dapper passengers.
While complaints about smaller seats and expensive tickets are rife today, a look into the history of commercial aviation shows that today’s customer experience may not be as bad as some believe.
While seats are undeniably smaller, aircraft safety, speed, ticket prices and inflight entertainment have improved — a fact to keep in mind while perusing photographs of commercial aircraft from the past.
Legroom
When it comes to legroom, the “clippers” or flying boats first produced in the late 1920s were hard to rival, both then and now.
“The whole idea behind [flying boats] was passenger comfort,” said Dan K. Bubb, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
