Air Travel Stinks (in 1946)

[Dummy Pilot]

Here's an interesting article that is reprinted from Forbes magazine in 1946. It discusses how the flying public of that time thought that the postwar airline experience was terrible. As you read the article (which is admittedly long), you find yourself wondering if the writer from 55 years ago had a crystal ball to see today's passenger woes. There is one point where the author talks about the postwar boom in travel saying that in 5 years the total flying by all US airlines more than doubled to 3.5 billion revenue passenger miles....as a point of comparison, my airline alone flew 193 billion passenger miles last year

Air Travel in 1946

[flyboy2548m]

Westbound out of Chicago, flying in a rain like silver straws, the plane struggles through whipping mists in a melodrama of blue lightning flashes that reveal the great Duralumin wings trembling all the way out to the comforting regular flicker of the wing tips' lights. The storm passes and the plane slips softly on through the night, the storm only a memory in the black velvet distance where the red forks of lightning dig viciously again and again into the empty faraway Nebraska plains...

That guy could give Old St-Ex a run for his money.

[Hazmat]

That guy is on to something, back to the zepellin I say.