Air Travel then and now. . .I'm not nostalgic about it, it's gotten better
The Missouri River, note the barges.
As noted, I fly quite a bit. And I have a long history with air travel
too. I first boarded a commercial airliner as a baby, and I can recall
flying out of Casper on Western Airlines and Frontier Airlines, in jet
airliners, as a boy still in grade school. By the time I was junior
high I'd flown on Western, Frontier, Air Canada, and others I can't
recall. I can well recall when you could still get a flight on a 707
from Casper to Billings Montana.
Given that, I have experience with the "glory days" of jet travel that people are nostalgic about now.
I'm not. Air travel is a lot better now. Shoot, it's better than it was ten years ago.
The current jets are so fast that a lot of the nostalgia that people
place in old time air travel is really misplaced. I can well recall
when you received multiple drinks and food on flights. That's because
those flights were really slow. Now, they're so much faster it isn't
even funny.
This first became apparent to me on a flight some years ago to Oakland.
I'd flown to California before and was amazed when we were boarded on a
"regional airliner", probably some sort of Canadair jet. That jet
zipped to the destination so fast I was stunned. The week before last I
flew to Toronto, which I've done before, on a direct connection from
Denver. Sure, it took over three hours, again on a regional jet liner,
but that isn't too bad really. This past week I flew from Tampa to
Denver on an airbus that flew so high that we flew over satellites
(okay, not really, but it flew high) and it was as smooth as a bus.
Very comfortable, and really nice plane. The Dreamliner is even more
comfortable.
These planes are just super, and speedy. They get you where you need to
go very quickly, and if there isn't endless warmed up meals form the
galley, well so be it.
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