Air Hollywood, which is a film set rental company, offers the Pan Am Experience.[1] For about $300, you get to sit in a 747 cabin on the ground and have the experience of a Pan Am dinner from the 1960s.
Even at the low end, air travel was impressive. PSA was a low-cost airline. SJC to LAX, every hour, for about $14, with a 59 minute flight time. The process was very simple. Drive up to terminal. Park. Walk up to cash register. Pay. The register receipt was the boarding pass. A 727 pulls up and lowers the rear stairs. People get off. After a few minutes, the person who ran the cash register leads everyone waiting out to the plane, and they climb the stairs. Stairs retract, and plane takes off.
PSA stewardess graduation pictures from 1974.[2]
It's another reminder that terrorists have won, and have ruined the flight experience for everyone. You basically get searched in order to board. Nobody agrees to have even the slightest risk of a a plane to be hijacked in exchange of not having all of these security measures (which, in a significant part, are a security theater).
There are lots of public places/events that don't require any searches/background checks and where a bomb would yield a significant number of casualties and terror to blowing up a regional jet, yet we don't seem to be having explosions every other day.
Maybe the terrorist threat is overblown and is merely kept around as a convenient excuse for more surveillance/repression?
Yes and no? Terrorism is generally used against an enemy when actual military action is not possible. The intent would normally be to steer government action via basically public pressure. So the purpose is not the inconvenience or intrusiveness of counter terrorism precautions, that is just a side effect. Though most modern terrorism is likely a weird edge case rooted in an overly literal interpretation of a certain book which did not consider the case of a distant empire when it was designed, and therefore the terrorism has no logical game theoretic explanation (unlike, say, the IRA).
Exactly I live 600km from the capital. 1 hour flight. Still takes me more then half a day to get to my destination.
I ride my motorcycle most of the times 6 hours door to door. With pit stops on the way. Trains are slow here but I take the sleep train. Get on train 10pm go to sleep and arrive at 5am in the morning :)
Trains can be and have been blown up. But that's mostly harmless compared to the horrors that could be done to a fully occupied road tunnel with a few well coordinated trucks. Should we stop building roads?
Planes are an exceptional target because they can be deviated to foreign countries or to dramatic impact sites and because are so isolated while in the air. Neither applies to trains.
Also perfect train security doesn't protect against something on the track, and you can't adequately protect thousands of miles of track. You can reduce, but not eliminate, the risk.
A plane is a self-contained system and most people don't have access to surface-to-air missiles.
Sleeper trains are absolutely the superior choice. Instead of wearing yourself down from the journey, schedule it so you wake up at your destination in the morning.
I dream (heh) of a proper pan-european sleeper train network.
It's probably better for our habitable ecosystem though so in a backwards way anything that makes plane travel less of a convenient no-brainer is good.
I'm right there with you. I'd go as far as 14 hour drive before I start thinking I should fly instead.
It wasn't always like this, flying was bearable even as far back as 2002-2008 even counting the post-9/11 stuff. I think a most of it has to do with cost-cutting. The second they find an efficiency they cut staff and hire cheaper workers. The whole culture around airports, even expensive ones, has started to resemble bus stations.
I preferred the private Amtrak compartment. Overnight trip, bring your own snacks and beverage. Eat a meal or two with other people in the dining car. Read a book and be left alone in your room. Best part was being able to ride a bicycle right to the station and pack it my way. No luggage or boarding anxiety. Arrive and depart from the city or town center. After you pay the airline's extra luggage fees for a bicycle, the cost is comparable.
That's a bit of an exaggeration isn't it. Yes there's bag scan, and yes you need to buy in advance not to have exorbitant prices. Apart from that the experience seems the same.
And you shouldn't be taking 1h flights anywhere of course x)
While PSA operated within a single state, there were no training requirements for its flight attendants. They were recruited by a lucky fellow who walked up and down the beach on weekends making offers. The recruits could be working on actual flights as soon as the following Monday. The airline had a discount flight from LA to SF around midnight on Friday night that was a couple of dollars less than the standard fare you mention. And the passengers on that flight could fly assured that the flight attendants had a week's experience.
I remember flying PSA between Oakland and LAX in 1972. $16 each way and you could pay the flight attendant after boarding. The "meal" was a choice of "coffee, tea, punch or boullion".
It probably actually tastes good too. Iirc, taste buds don't work so well at altitude so all that fancy food prep was wasted on the passengers of yore. Might be worth revisiting on the 787s though since those are pressurized to 1km? Or something
Even at the low end, air travel was impressive. PSA was a low-cost airline. SJC to LAX, every hour, for about $14, with a 59 minute flight time. The process was very simple. Drive up to terminal. Park. Walk up to cash register. Pay. The register receipt was the boarding pass. A 727 pulls up and lowers the rear stairs. People get off. After a few minutes, the person who ran the cash register leads everyone waiting out to the plane, and they climb the stairs. Stairs retract, and plane takes off. PSA stewardess graduation pictures from 1974.[2]
[1] https://airhollywood.com/events/pan-am-experience/
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090121124408/http://www.jetpsa...