Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. If you put us all together,
Speaker 2: you get the cast of Wings.
Speaker 3: I watch a little bit of Wings, but not much.
Speaker 2: It was actually one of those I don't want to
Speaker 2: say unsung because it was pretty big when it was out.
Speaker 2: But I think in retrospect a lot of people who like,
Speaker 2: say like Friends or something like that are missing out
Speaker 2: on a really great show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I watched.
Speaker 4: I don't know why it never got its hooks in
Speaker 4: me because I did watch a little bit of it,
Speaker 4: and the cast was great. Tony Shaloub, Stephen Webber.
Speaker 2: Tim Daily, don't forget Tim Daley and Crystal Bernard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Tim Daily and Weber.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Stephen Webber the Man. So yeah, anyway, go watch Wings.
Speaker 2: But that's not what we're talking about today. That's not
Speaker 2: the point of episode. This episode is tangentially related. That's
Speaker 2: why I brought Wings up in the first place, because
Speaker 2: we're talking about the history of air travel, and it
Speaker 2: was actually a lot more fascinating than I thought.
Speaker 4: Chuck, really, because I just I'm fascinated by this constantly.
Speaker 2: There's chunks of it that I love and am fascinated by,
Speaker 2: but overall is a whole concept. I was I was
Speaker 2: impressed by how fascinated I was by it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, big, you were impressed by your own fascination.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, Wow, there did it go? Josh,
Speaker 2: you really did fascination right.
Speaker 4: Uh So, thanks today for help with this one. And
Speaker 4: you know, we're kind of just going to walk you
Speaker 4: in the timeline sort of way through passenger air travel.
Speaker 4: Uh not you know how planes work or not, plane
Speaker 4: crashes and hijackings and stuff like that. But what was
Speaker 4: it like from the very first moment human beings stepped
Speaker 4: on a plane in for a commercial type flight, and
Speaker 4: how that's changed over the years, from food to bathrooms
Speaker 4: to smoking to like the terms we used to talk
Speaker 4: about the people who work there, Right, So we should
Speaker 4: probably start if we're going to talk about this to
Speaker 4: the very first passenger airline flight, which was a flight
Speaker 4: of one human being on January first, nineteen fourteen, from
Speaker 4: the Saint Petersburg Tampa Airport.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Airboat Line was a company. They flew across Tampa Bay.
Speaker 4: Three thousand people came out to watch this twenty minute flight.
Speaker 4: The airline was around for three months, flew about twelve
Speaker 4: hundred people. And if you're wondering how much that costs
Speaker 4: back then, about five bucks for a one way ticket
Speaker 4: and ten for a round.
Speaker 2: Trip, which is a million dollars today.
Speaker 3: To fly over Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2: But no, but get this, at the time, it was
Speaker 2: a two hour steamship ride or a ten hour train ride,
Speaker 2: So a twenty minute flight was not bad. I would
Speaker 2: have coughed up some money for that to save that time.
Speaker 2: I thought it was more like a proving ground for
Speaker 2: the guy who created the planes. Yeah, but that did
Speaker 2: kind of establish this concept that people would pay you
Speaker 2: to fly them around in these new fangle airplanes. I
Speaker 2: don't know how much it would have, like, like how
Speaker 2: long it would have taken to really kind of gain
Speaker 2: ground had it not been for the postal service, though,
Speaker 2: because like with a lot of things, the US government
Speaker 2: kind of took the biggest risks and absorbed the biggest
Speaker 2: initial costs in researching and figuring out how to establish
Speaker 2: commercial flight.
Speaker 4: Essentially, the first international flight was also from Florida and
Speaker 4: it went to Cuba and just put a pin in
Speaker 4: this flight because this will come back. It was Aero
Speaker 4: Marine Airways and they ran for about four years in
Speaker 4: the early nineteen twenties in wicker plane seats, and I
Speaker 4: was just curious, are you scared of those?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Good question. I saw a picture of them, and no,
Speaker 2: I would have been okay with these.
Speaker 3: So it's strictly wicker wheelchairs wheelchairs.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the combination of the two, so old timing
Speaker 2: wheel chairs.
Speaker 3: So walking into a peer one doesn't freak you out.
Speaker 2: No, no, okay, it makes me think I'm a promin
Speaker 2: about to have my picture taken.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, great.
Speaker 2: So, like you said, the Saint Petersburg Tampa airboat line
Speaker 2: folded in a few months, Aeromarine Airways folded in four years.
Speaker 2: And I mean the fact that planes had been invented
Speaker 2: by then. Eventually they would have gained enough ground that
Speaker 2: we would have commercial aviation like we do today. But
Speaker 2: who knows how long it would have taken had the
Speaker 2: US government not gotten involved, Because, like with a lot
Speaker 2: of other major technologies that we have today, the government
Speaker 2: stepped in and took on the risk and the initial
Speaker 2: costs in developing commercial aviation, and they did it under
Speaker 2: the auspices of the postal Service.
Speaker 4: Yeah, airmail Baby. May fifteenth, nineteen eighteen is when the
Speaker 4: first air mail flights took off, servicing at the time
Speaker 4: only DC, Philly and New York. And little side note
Speaker 4: that's kind of fun. The very famous stamp. I know,
Speaker 4: we talked about it in stamp collecting, the inverted Jenny.
Speaker 4: There was a printing error in this plane was upside down,
Speaker 4: and that was a very limited run of these upside
Speaker 4: down stamps. So it's one of the most valuable stamps
Speaker 4: in the world. But that was commemorating these first air
Speaker 4: mail flights. It took a couple of years and they
Speaker 4: opened it up to across the country, so by nineteen
Speaker 4: twenty you could airmail something from New York to California.
Speaker 4: And it was a big success through the nineteen twenties
Speaker 4: such that they eventually were like, all right, now we
Speaker 4: can go private with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they handed over the job of delivering the mail
Speaker 2: to private companies. So now we had commercial aviation, but
Speaker 2: it was all mail and cargo, right, But eventually that
Speaker 2: evolved into also moving people from place to place. So
Speaker 2: that's where commercial aviation, at least in the United States,
Speaker 2: but kind of around the world really finds its footing,
Speaker 2: like that's where it grew from. I just find that fascinating,
Speaker 2: Oh totally, And I wasn't expecting to find it fascinating.
Speaker 3: You really let yourself down, huh. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, like you said, in the nineteen twenties, they said, hey,
Speaker 4: why don't we start flying rich white people all over
Speaker 4: the country, because that's exclusively what it was for a
Speaker 4: long time, a round trip from New York to LA
Speaker 4: And this is not NonStop. There are lots of layovers
Speaker 4: to fuel up and stuff like that. It was two
Speaker 4: hundred and sixty bucks in the nineteen twenties, which amounts
Speaker 4: to our friends at the West Egg Inflation website to
Speaker 4: about forty six hundred bucks today. That back then that
Speaker 4: was half the price of a new car, and so
Speaker 4: it was rich people. They only flew about six thousand
Speaker 4: people in the year nineteen twenty nine, which you know,
Speaker 4: it was very exclusive.
Speaker 3: At first.
Speaker 4: You had to fly low because the planes weren't pressurized,
Speaker 4: so it was a very rocky, turbulent flight. They were
Speaker 4: very cold because the planes were insulated. They were incredibly loud.
Speaker 4: I think the tri motor ten goose and if you're
Speaker 4: a well I was about say, if you're an aviation enthusiasts,
Speaker 4: you already know these planes. But I encourage people to
Speaker 4: become aviation enthusiasts because there's nothing more fun than looking
Speaker 4: up these old planes like the ten Goose. I don't
Speaker 4: know about how rare, but I haven't seen that many
Speaker 4: tri motors in my day. Sure, so it was kind
Speaker 4: of cool. It carried twelve people and flew at one
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty decibels decibels at takeoff.
Speaker 2: Right, which I saw a chart, And that is louder
Speaker 2: than being at the front row of a rock concert.
Speaker 2: I just assumed they were accepting Dinosaur Junior from that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and mud honey, I can vouch for that
Speaker 3: one too.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's still really loud, loud enough that the
Speaker 2: stewards had to communicate with the passengers using like megaphones. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like the old timey ones that they used to use
Speaker 2: at pep rallies and you know the old Yale days
Speaker 2: at the turn of the last century.
Speaker 3: Right, no diet coke.
Speaker 2: Right, So, as you put it, flying was really awful.
Speaker 2: It was not a fun affair. It was just so
Speaker 2: novel that people still put up with the cold and
Speaker 2: the noise and the pukiness. But train travel was still
Speaker 2: like it was more affordable, it was more reliable because
Speaker 2: there are tons of plane breakdowns at the time. Basically
Speaker 2: some things never changed is what I took from that.
Speaker 2: But trains were still kind of like the way to go.
Speaker 2: It was just flying was just so luxurious and such
Speaker 2: a novel that actually people used to come out and
Speaker 2: watch planes take off at the airport. I guess LaGuardia
Speaker 2: had like a skywalk where people would come and watch
Speaker 2: the planes take off, and there would be more people
Speaker 2: during the like a single day that frequented the skywalk
Speaker 2: than flew in or out of LaGuardia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's that's still a fun thing. I think
Speaker 4: a lot of cities have either municipal airports that have
Speaker 4: like bars nearby. We have one here in Atlanta. The
Speaker 4: fifty seven Spider Group is so great World War two
Speaker 4: themed restaurant and bar where we shot some video stuff
Speaker 4: years ago.
Speaker 3: But it's cool.
Speaker 4: You can go sit out on a bar patio and
Speaker 4: watch the planes take off and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: I enjoy it.
Speaker 2: That was from our TV show where we were doing
Speaker 2: Cloud seating.
Speaker 4: Oh, I thought it was one of those interstitials.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it was the cloud seating part. Yeah,
Speaker 2: with the with the baseball game where it rained or
Speaker 2: the softball game.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know what we did both.
Speaker 4: We did cloud seating for the baseball game because we
Speaker 4: faked being in a biplane and flying when it was
Speaker 4: in fact just sitting on the ground. And we also
Speaker 4: I remember went over there to shoot an interstitial on
Speaker 4: Japanese stragglers because we were at one point wandering through
Speaker 4: the bamboo on that problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. They have like World War two jeeps
Speaker 2: and stuff there.
Speaker 4: And we probably did that because our good buddy Chad
Speaker 4: who made that show, could like shoot there for one hundred.
Speaker 3: Bucks or something.
Speaker 4: So anyway, trains, like you said, were reliable, they were comfy,
Speaker 4: people could afford it. Planes travel wasn't really hitting it
Speaker 4: big at that point, but this is when it started
Speaker 4: becoming a thing. So like, hey, we need to know
Speaker 4: how to talk about this stuff, and so they kind
Speaker 4: of borrowed from steamships as far as the terminology goes, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one reason, so yes, you have stewards that
Speaker 2: were we call flight attendants today. But that's just like
Speaker 2: on a ship. There was the captain of the plane,
Speaker 2: not the pilot. They call them airlines, very similar to
Speaker 2: calling them cruise lines. I even saw a picture of
Speaker 2: an early plane and they had straight up portholes for
Speaker 2: the windows on the plane. So I'd never noticed it before,
Speaker 2: but it did borrow a lot of terminology, and I
Speaker 2: think the reason why is because a lot of the
Speaker 2: early planes were airboats. Essentially, they were like LaGuardia Is
Speaker 2: on the water because it it was originally like a
Speaker 2: marine airport, like for airboats to fly in and out.
Speaker 2: Did you know that?
Speaker 3: I did not know that, but I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2: I found it fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, that very first flight company in Tampa was called
Speaker 4: an airboat exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there was like kind of like a distinction.
Speaker 2: I think. Also they were like, see, everybody likes cruising
Speaker 2: on steamships. This is basically the same thing. We're just
Speaker 2: the words are essentially the same. So there you go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but these can't to the ocean. They'll just fall
Speaker 4: from the sky and maybe land in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a two fer.
Speaker 3: You mentioned Stewarts.
Speaker 4: That was what the terminali changed over the years from Stewart,
Speaker 4: eventually to Stuart S because the first stewards were exclusively male.
Speaker 4: In the nineteen thirties, a woman named Ellen Church came along.
Speaker 4: She was a nurse from Iowa who wanted to be
Speaker 4: a pilot but was not able to because it was
Speaker 4: in the nineteen thirties and she was a woman. So
Speaker 4: she said, all right, I want to change the way
Speaker 4: the game is on the plane then, and let's get
Speaker 4: rid of these male stewards and bring in the Stewart s,
Speaker 4: which was a name that lasted all the way up
Speaker 4: until the late nineteen seventies when the term flight attendant
Speaker 4: came along. But as someone who grew up in the
Speaker 4: seventies and eighties and nineties as you did, it was
Speaker 4: not It took a while for flight attendant to catch on.
Speaker 2: I would say it took a good twenty five to
Speaker 2: thirty years before it was. You just did not hear
Speaker 2: the word stewardess anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you'd still hear it occasionally from some of
Speaker 4: our boomer relatives.
Speaker 2: So Ellen Church, she was a pioneer, a groundbreaker. She
Speaker 2: worked for Boeing, which became United. Didn't know that answers
Speaker 2: a lot of questions though, and she hired Boeing's first
Speaker 2: eight stewardesses. She only flew for I think like eighteen
Speaker 2: months a year and a half because she was in
Speaker 2: a car wreck and went back to nursing. But she
Speaker 2: that was it, like the genie was out of the bottle.
Speaker 2: Because I think we talked about this in our Flight
Speaker 2: Attendant episode. The premise was if you were on a
Speaker 2: flight and there was a woman there, she would have
Speaker 2: a calming, homie influence. But also there was like a
Speaker 2: subtle dare like are you going to be such a
Speaker 2: sissy that this woman is able to fly and you
Speaker 2: can't because you're scared? Come on? So like all that
Speaker 2: combined just opened the door for stewart is from that
Speaker 2: point on, but not women pilots, not for a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And one thing that we didn't mention that is a huge,
Speaker 4: huge deal was not only was Church and nurse, but
Speaker 4: she recruited other nurses. And all of those first eight
Speaker 4: stewardesses were nurses, and almost all the early flight attendants
Speaker 4: were nurses. And you know, the idea again not just
Speaker 4: you know, besides being a woman that can help reassure you,
Speaker 4: but a nurse that's on board is really going to
Speaker 4: help reassure you because they just have that. A nurse's
Speaker 4: got to have a good demeanor, got a good bedside manner,
Speaker 4: or in this case, first class seat side manner.
Speaker 2: To me, I find it less than reassuring. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: what all goes on planes that you need a nurse
Speaker 2: on them at all times?
Speaker 3: You know you're overthinking it.
Speaker 2: I would have back then too, I would have old
Speaker 2: time you overthought it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So those were the early flight attendants, these these
Speaker 4: women who were nurses. But again Church could not become
Speaker 4: a pilot because they didn't allow that. For She's probably
Speaker 4: another forty years after she came along.
Speaker 2: The first woman pilot commercial airline pilot I could find
Speaker 2: started flying in nineteen sixty nine. Her name was Terry Whideroo,
Speaker 2: who flew for Scandinavian Air Systems says, and then four
Speaker 2: years later in the United States, Emily Howell Warner started
Speaker 2: flying for Frontier and Bonnie Tobersie in the same year.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy three started flying for American and Warner
Speaker 2: became the first captain, not just pilot, I think in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six. So it took a little while for
Speaker 2: women to make it out of the cabin to the cockpit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we should point out too that Bonnie Tobersie
Speaker 4: that was her name, right, Yep, she was a pilot
Speaker 4: at twenty four years old. That's disturbing to me. That
Speaker 4: disturbs me today. Then it would disturb me even or
Speaker 4: maybe it would have been more believable back then. But definitely,
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to be ages. But if I see
Speaker 4: a twenty four year pilot getting on my delta flight,
Speaker 4: I'm just inherently a little bit freaked out. It's probably
Speaker 4: wrong of me, probably showing my age. I just want
Speaker 4: a little bit of experience, you know.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I think the ages are different. I think
Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy three, twenty four year old was
Speaker 2: akin to like a fifty year old today. No, I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to make you feel better here.
Speaker 3: Well, how would you feel?
Speaker 4: I don't all of a sudden, I feel like I'm
Speaker 4: a twenty four year old and age is jerk for
Speaker 4: worrying about that. Would do you think most people or
Speaker 4: would you worry about.
Speaker 2: That if they were like the captain, Well, she was
Speaker 2: a pilot at the.
Speaker 3: Time, the pilot at least.
Speaker 2: I mean, if there were other people who were older
Speaker 2: in there, i'd feel better. If it were just the
Speaker 2: one twenty four year old, i'd be nervous. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: brought there and we have little to do with them
Speaker 2: being twenty four. But there's only so much experience you
Speaker 2: can cram into those twenty four years.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm talking about. It's experience.
Speaker 4: I have nothing against twenty four year olds, but unless
Speaker 4: they're like, no, they started flying you know, Promes when
Speaker 4: they were seven, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, their child air prodigy.
Speaker 3: Anyway, twenty four seemed young, and I just thought that
Speaker 3: was funny.
Speaker 2: Have you realized that we haven't taken a break yet?
Speaker 3: No, but it's a perfect time too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 4: All right, I'm gonna go think about what I've done
Speaker 4: today and then we'll be.
Speaker 3: Right back.
Speaker 1: Learn and stuff with Joshua job stuff.
Speaker 2: You shine up, so chuck. Believe it or not, we've
Speaker 2: only made it to the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3: Wooh.
Speaker 2: The whole thing really kind of started in the twenties.
Speaker 2: And get this, so you said in nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 2: six thousand people flew in the entire year. Yep, less
Speaker 2: than a decade later, nineteen thirty eight, more than one
Speaker 2: point two million Americans alone flew every year, So it
Speaker 2: had really started to open up in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: but it was still business travelers typically and wealthy people.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and the planes, you know, and this is why
Speaker 4: people started flying more and things got a little bit better.
Speaker 4: Still cost a lot of money, but it was a
Speaker 4: little more comfy. And thirty three, Boeing came out with
Speaker 4: the dual prop two forty seven gorgeous plane. This had
Speaker 4: an insulated cabin, it was the first one where you
Speaker 4: weren't freezing, had twelve cushioned upholstered seats, it had hot
Speaker 4: and cold water, it had food service, and it was
Speaker 4: just it was a step up. And this was in
Speaker 4: nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think you're right. I think that's
Speaker 2: why air travel became more popular because the planes just
Speaker 2: got nicer. After Boeing released the two four seven niner,
Speaker 2: Douglas Aircraft Company came up with the DC three, which.
Speaker 3: Is what's a niner?
Speaker 2: It's just an air airline lingo thing cbka.
Speaker 3: Oh I thought it meant nine, it did.
Speaker 2: I just added it because I can't say Boeing two
Speaker 2: four seven without adding a niner.
Speaker 3: Okay, But to be clear, it's not the two four
Speaker 3: seven nine.
Speaker 2: No, it's just the two four seven niner slash niner.
Speaker 2: So you don't even have to be an airplane enthusiast
Speaker 2: to be like, I've heard of the DC three before.
Speaker 2: That's because by the end of the nineteen thirties, ninety
Speaker 2: percent of all the airplanes flying around in the world
Speaker 2: were DC threes, and even Boeing, which remember had its
Speaker 2: own airline that became United, basically flew with DC threes
Speaker 2: even though they were the ones making the two four
Speaker 2: sevens niners.
Speaker 3: Yeahbsolutely.
Speaker 4: Thankfully, the Douglas Aircraft Company gave us the DC stands
Speaker 4: for Douglas Commercial. The Douglas Commercial three had twenty one seats,
Speaker 4: had an actual kitchen, a little mini kitchen galley, carried
Speaker 4: a lot more fuel, and it was the first one
Speaker 4: that could go NonStop from New York to Chicago at
Speaker 4: that point. And it was did you say the percentage
Speaker 4: that ninety percent were DC threes?
Speaker 2: You bet I did. I said nine or zero percent, right.
Speaker 4: And I found this fun little story I sent to you.
Speaker 4: The DC three is just a gorgeous plane. And there's
Speaker 4: one that is at least a few years ago. I
Speaker 4: couldn't find any update. But in twenty twenty one in Finland,
Speaker 4: to Finish air brought out a DC three that was
Speaker 4: eighty years old, restored it for service and it did
Speaker 4: forty member flights over that summer and their plan and
Speaker 4: their goal was for that thing to just keep it
Speaker 4: going and so it eventually would hit one hundred year mark.
Speaker 2: Very nice.
Speaker 3: That's like a would you go on it?
Speaker 2: No, okay, no, I'm not even afraid to fly. I'm
Speaker 2: just smart.
Speaker 3: Oh it's such a beautiful plane though. I love it
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: So I think we've reached the end of the thirties
Speaker 2: by now, right.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: And you had said at the outset that we were
Speaker 2: kind of following a timeline that is a lie because
Speaker 2: we're hopping around here or there. You're right, And this
Speaker 2: is a good example of that because we're going to
Speaker 2: talk now about airplane bathrooms, because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: myths around airplane bathrooms and we're going to extinguish them
Speaker 2: with extreme prejudice.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: There were at bathrooms very very early on on airplanes,
Speaker 4: like other things were modeled on ships and steamers. That
Speaker 4: was the bathrooms are no different. They were much much
Speaker 4: bigger than they are now. Very nice, but what you
Speaker 4: did was you just peeped and poop pooed and.
Speaker 3: And it's sort of like an outhouse.
Speaker 4: It was just a glorified bucket that someone emptied after
Speaker 4: the flight. And they did that until we got to
Speaker 4: the sort of blue chemical water toilets that came about later.
Speaker 2: Yes, but even after the blue chemicals were introduced, it
Speaker 2: was still essentially a tank, a holding tank under the
Speaker 2: toilet seat. But we have a person to praise, a
Speaker 2: saint named Saint James Kemper, who came up with the
Speaker 2: vacuum flushed airplane toilet. And what he should have done
Speaker 2: is said, it's the vacuum flushed airplane toilet. No, it's
Speaker 2: not actually just flushing it out into the atmosphere, even
Speaker 2: though it sounds like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of people probably think that, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, totally in the back of my mind every time,
Speaker 2: I'm like, eh, it's possible. Yeah, it's what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it. It just opens the toilet up
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden there's nothing between you and
Speaker 2: the air that you're flying through at five hundred miles
Speaker 2: an hour, That's what it seems like to me, right,
Speaker 2: because it makes that same sound, But what it's actually
Speaker 2: doing is using pneumatic action to suck down sometimes at
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty miles an hour. I think I'm
Speaker 2: like the airbus A three eighty into that holding tank
Speaker 2: that's way far away now from the seat, so it's
Speaker 2: far less gross, but somebody still has to pump it
Speaker 2: out every after every flight. And I saw that on
Speaker 2: an average seven forty seventh flight, two hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: gallons of sewage are produced. Oh gosh, I mean yeah,
Speaker 2: at least it's not a bucket.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And as a as a reminder, I am so averse
Speaker 4: to sounds like ambulances.
Speaker 3: I plug my ears when out.
Speaker 2: That's right, yes, yeah, including airplane bathrooms.
Speaker 3: Right, it's the worst. That's just one of the sounds
Speaker 3: my ears can't take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm interested by this now, I'll say, I'm fascinated
Speaker 2: by this.
Speaker 3: Are you impressed with that?
Speaker 2: Is it the I'm impressed that I'm fascinated by it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it that it's a high pitch sound.
Speaker 2: Is it that it's a washing sound? Is it that?
Speaker 2: What is it about that sound that you don't like?
Speaker 2: And apologies to everybody who has misophonia at the whoosh sound.
Speaker 4: It is super super loud, it's super super sudden and sharp,
Speaker 4: and it's a super small space. So it's just it's
Speaker 4: too much for me in that little space.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. It is jarring. I have to remind myself, like, no, don't,
Speaker 2: don't get pushed back and try to steady yourself by
Speaker 2: putting your hand on the wall. Never touched the wall.
Speaker 2: It is a jarring sound. I agree with you, but
Speaker 2: it's overwhelming essentially, is what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, you can wash up.
Speaker 2: I got you. No, I would you cut your hand
Speaker 2: off at that point?
Speaker 4: So another thing we can definitely say has not happened.
Speaker 4: Another myth is that frozen blue feces and pp don't
Speaker 4: have you know, don't come out of the plane and
Speaker 4: kill people like at the beginning of that episode of
Speaker 4: Six Feet Under. There may be frozen blue stuff, but
Speaker 4: it's from a leak or something that has that freezes
Speaker 4: when it hits the air. It's not actual body stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the myth is that it's purpose. I
Speaker 2: think that leaks do happen, and chunks of ice have
Speaker 2: hurt injured people before. I don't know if anybody's been
Speaker 2: killed by it. But the other thing that can happen
Speaker 2: is that this ice, which is they call it blue ice,
Speaker 2: which is it's that sewage that's produced, like the chemicals
Speaker 2: and the water and the waste all combined. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: can depending on where it happens and how what altitude
Speaker 2: is dropped out, it can melt on the way down,
Speaker 2: and so you can be splattered by this disgusting sewage
Speaker 2: rain or have ice, you know, come through your house
Speaker 2: and bash your shoulder, like happened to one poor woman
Speaker 2: I think in Alabama or Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the did You Eat a one six
Speaker 3: ft under? Right?
Speaker 2: Sure? I watched the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, you remember that episode that was one of
Speaker 3: the openers.
Speaker 2: No, I don't, but I'm not surprised.
Speaker 4: That it was one of those where they try and
Speaker 4: they started doing it more and more, where they would
Speaker 4: try and mislead you and you would think like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is how that person's gonna die, and this is
Speaker 4: one I can't remember what happened at the beginning, But
Speaker 4: I think it's like, you think this guy is going
Speaker 4: to have a heart attack or something, and then he's like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go cut the grass, and he goes
Speaker 4: out in the backyard and through the kitchen window you
Speaker 4: just see the blue why hit.
Speaker 3: It was pretty good.
Speaker 2: I went back and watched just the last episode again,
Speaker 2: it's really good, but it just does not have the
Speaker 2: same impact if you haven't watched like the whole series
Speaker 2: leading up to it recently. Yeah, yeah, agreed, one of
Speaker 2: the great, all time great last episodes though, for sure.
Speaker 4: Totally great finale. All right, so now we're flying. We're
Speaker 4: back to the timeline.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, I was a rotten Meyer.
Speaker 3: So we're back to World War Two.
Speaker 4: During World War Two, there was a lot of obviously
Speaker 4: restrictions for military rationing of fuel, so there wasn't a
Speaker 4: ton of air travel commercially during World War Two. But
Speaker 4: right after that people really got into it, and nineteen
Speaker 4: fifty five was finally when air travel overtook train travel
Speaker 4: in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and two years after that, it became more likely
Speaker 2: that somebody would fly by plane to Europe than take
Speaker 2: a steamship. So by nineteen fifty seven, air travel had
Speaker 2: become the dominant the dominant factor in American travel.
Speaker 4: New airlines were launching all over the place. There was
Speaker 4: a lot of competition in trying to get customers, but
Speaker 4: it was all the way until nineteen seventy eight that
Speaker 4: the airlines were deregulated. So previous to that, the government
Speaker 4: said what routes you could fly. I don't know if
Speaker 4: they set the prices, but the prices had to be
Speaker 4: the same. I'm sure they worked with the airline.
Speaker 3: No, they set the prices well by working with the airlines,
Speaker 3: so because they obviously couldn't bankrupt the airlines.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, But you also said what rot they're
Speaker 2: allowed to fly. There are also routes that they had
Speaker 2: to fly, like cities that you would be like what
Speaker 2: you used to fly from New York to Topeka NonStop? Yeah,
Speaker 2: they used to do that because the federal government was like,
Speaker 2: Topeka needs airplanes to come get people too. They want
Speaker 2: to get out of there, So they made sure that
Speaker 2: cities around the country were serviced that. After deregulation, that
Speaker 2: was one of the first things that stopped. They're like,
Speaker 2: we're not flying the Topeka anymore. We'll talk about deregulation
Speaker 2: in a second, but before deregulation, because the prices of
Speaker 2: the tickets were the same essentially across the board, the
Speaker 2: way that airlines competed for business was by being like,
Speaker 2: come aboard our airline and be treated like a king
Speaker 2: or queen for your flight. It's going to be amazing.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: United had a literal red carpet if you were going
Speaker 4: to jump on their DC seven, which was the way
Speaker 4: a four prop Douglas commercial aircraft, another gorgeous plane in flight.
Speaker 4: Meals were really pretty special at the time. There were
Speaker 4: multi multi course dinners. I mean, nowadays the only thing
Speaker 4: I fly is Delta, and I think first class is
Speaker 4: the only one that has meals even I don't think
Speaker 4: anyone else even gets a meal. But back then it
Speaker 4: was just a lot fancier that was real silverware, which
Speaker 4: they may have now, I don't know, and tablecloths and
Speaker 4: stuff like that, dude. And then they also tried to,
Speaker 4: you know, make the your kids feel special by giving
Speaker 4: them like junior stewardess or junior pilot wings and stuff
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: The meals, like if you look up airline food of
Speaker 2: the past or something like that. And look at old
Speaker 2: photos there's like people in chess hats, carving like hams
Speaker 2: and roast beef like seatside. It was amazing. Like the
Speaker 2: kind of meals people were served. Yeah, it was just
Speaker 2: it's nuts. And you can look at old like menus
Speaker 2: and stuff too. It's it was a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 2: And that was like your ticket included that in the
Speaker 2: in the price, and everybody on the plane got that
Speaker 2: kind of treatment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there weren't as many people on these flights,
Speaker 4: so you could afford to do food a little better,
Speaker 4: not afford costwise, but it's just hard to You couldn't feed,
Speaker 4: you know, four hundred people well on a plane.
Speaker 2: Not well no, And I saw that at least in
Speaker 2: some airlines. They would prepare these meals like an hour
Speaker 2: before the flight and put them on and yeah, you
Speaker 2: can't do that with four hundred, but you could with
Speaker 2: fifty maybe.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So one of the other things that they did was
Speaker 2: encourage smoking, like not only allowed smoking, they encouraged it.
Speaker 2: They're like, kick back, relax and smoke some cigarettes on
Speaker 2: your flight. And in fact, I think it was I
Speaker 2: think it was you that gave out Chesterfield cigarettes, like exclusively.
Speaker 2: There's like one of those fifties illustrations of a flight
Speaker 2: attendant walking around with a carton of chester Fields just
Speaker 2: holding it open for anybody who wants to come and
Speaker 2: grab a complimentary pack.
Speaker 3: Amazing and gross.
Speaker 4: And we'll get put a pin in that because more
Speaker 4: on smoking coming up, okay, because we're just going on
Speaker 4: a timeline here. Since we are on that timeline still,
Speaker 4: it is the nineteen fifties, air travel was booming for
Speaker 4: white Americans. And I say that because while airlines themselves
Speaker 4: were not segregated, a lot of the airports were, and
Speaker 4: you know, especially obviously in the South, they would usher
Speaker 4: black people into a different part of the airport, the
Speaker 4: facilities were not as good basically all but discouraging black
Speaker 4: Americans from plying. This started changing a little bit nineteen
Speaker 4: forties with the Washington National was the only federally owned airport,
Speaker 4: and the NAACP targeted them, you know, with protests and stuff,
Speaker 4: and the government since it was a federally owned airport
Speaker 4: and the only one had regulatory power, so they ended
Speaker 4: segregation at that airport in nineteen forty eight. But you know,
Speaker 4: it was all the way up until like the nineteen
Speaker 4: sixties when the DOJ started suing airports in the South
Speaker 4: by saying like, hey, the you know, the segregated part
Speaker 4: of your airport is no good and you're providing an
Speaker 4: inferior service and you can't do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw Shreveport, Louisiana had the last airport in
Speaker 2: America to be desegregated, and that was in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't have mentioned that last part yet, because we
Speaker 2: are going now to the jet age, and that really
Speaker 2: started in the fifties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're jumping around the TIMELINEE.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are, we are. So there's a discrepancy about
Speaker 2: when the jet age exactly started. I think nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: eight was when the first commercially available jet service really
Speaker 2: kind of began to be widespread. But I know for
Speaker 2: a fact that the term jet set, which related specifically
Speaker 2: to wealthy people who flew around the world using jets,
Speaker 2: was coined in the early fifties by society columnist Igor Cassini,
Speaker 2: and so he either knew what was coming, or somehow
Speaker 2: the wealthy were using other jets I guess, maybe chartering
Speaker 2: them or something to fly around the world the fashionable parties,
Speaker 2: and that it wasn't until the fifties that less than
Speaker 2: uber wealthy people were able to start using jet travel.
Speaker 4: Is it possible that jet had an alternate meaning no?
Speaker 4: So he predicted that nineteen forty eight would come along
Speaker 4: with the very first jet turbine engine in the Boeing
Speaker 4: seven oh.
Speaker 2: Seven nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 3: Fifty eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said forty eight, So yeah, I think that
Speaker 2: there were other jets, like there was the Havelin Comet
Speaker 2: predated the seven oh seven. I think the seven oh
Speaker 2: seven just made it so that you could carry more people,
Speaker 2: which meant that ticket prices were lower, which meant that
Speaker 2: the jet age really opened up for society at large.
Speaker 4: And boy did it because that cut air travel in half. Basically,
Speaker 4: the transcontinental flight from New York to London went from
Speaker 4: fifteen hours to about seven on that seven oh seven,
Speaker 4: and it went up with people, you know, about one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty passengers, which
Speaker 4: was double what a DC seven could hold.
Speaker 2: Up with people. The seven forty seven came along too.
Speaker 2: That really kind of helped expand and open up the
Speaker 2: jet travel for the average person because you could suddenly
Speaker 2: fit five hundred people in what was known as the
Speaker 2: Queen of the Skies, and you could fit five hundred
Speaker 2: people into a plane and still have for some swanky,
Speaker 2: swanky seventies lounges and bars that they used to build
Speaker 2: in the seven forty seven.
Speaker 3: Oh, my friend, when you sent me that link, I
Speaker 3: love it.
Speaker 4: What name the title of the article, at least so
Speaker 4: people can look up those pictures.
Speaker 2: I know that it was on Executive Traveler and it
Speaker 2: was called Recalling the Fabulous Bars and Lounges of the
Speaker 2: Boeing seven forty seven.
Speaker 4: Looking at those pictures does something to me that I
Speaker 4: can't explain.
Speaker 2: I know exactly what to mean.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's like the opposite of the wish of an airplane bathroom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the exact opposite. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 4: That same lounge is fairly cool if it's just on
Speaker 4: the ground somewhere in someone's home. But those things, seeing
Speaker 4: people sitting around on those sofas and somebody playing the
Speaker 4: piano while they drink Martini's, it makes me crazy, crazy jealous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I know. Luckily people like Richard Branson came
Speaker 2: along you're like, you need to get these things back
Speaker 2: and so on. I don't know if Virgin's still around
Speaker 2: anymore or if they are. I think they kind of
Speaker 2: phased out some of their lounges, but there used to
Speaker 2: be bars on Virgin's airplanes. Yeah, and I know on
Speaker 2: Conder Air of the ways, they are known for having
Speaker 2: a pretty great bar on their airplanes. I think seven
Speaker 2: seventy sevens.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I sat at one on that flight to Australia,
Speaker 4: so I have seen it and partaken in that situation.
Speaker 2: It was in the seventies though, Yeah, I mean he did.
Speaker 4: A fine job for modern airplanes and what a modern
Speaker 4: bar on an airplane might look like. But man, it
Speaker 4: ain't nothing like those old school ones. No, those were gorgeous.
Speaker 2: I feel you. I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was too good to be true.
Speaker 4: Those would not last long because they said, hey, you
Speaker 4: know what we get rid of that awesome cocktail piano
Speaker 4: bar lounge up there, we can put a lot more
Speaker 4: plane seats and flights will be cheaper.
Speaker 3: And that was technically good for everybody.
Speaker 2: I guess. So I think domestic flights in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: are about what they cost today for adjusting for inflation,
Speaker 2: of course, But the international flights are where they really
Speaker 2: got you. A round trip ticket from nineteen in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy from New York to London costs five grand. That's
Speaker 2: just a regular regular class ticket. You can get there
Speaker 2: today non stop on British airways for five hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty six dollars round trip. Really, so it definitely yeah,
Speaker 2: I looked it up. Their first class in some of
Speaker 2: the airlines starts for those trips at about five grand.
Speaker 2: But then also I think KLM has like a seventeen
Speaker 2: thousand dollars round trip first class ticket, so it definitely varies.
Speaker 2: But the just the regular class ticket where they put
Speaker 2: you in a cattle car cheek to jowl by your
Speaker 2: fellow passengers and toss you some Cheetos and say settle
Speaker 2: in for nine hours. That you can do that for
Speaker 2: five and eighty six dollars.
Speaker 3: All right, not bad.
Speaker 4: Frequent flyers back then in the sixties seventies were pretty
Speaker 4: much men flying for business, expensing it to the company
Speaker 4: and to try and get that business with the company.
Speaker 4: This is when you started getting the whole idea, the
Speaker 4: very outdated and misogynistic idea of like, hey, let's get
Speaker 4: these Let's get some good looking ladies in there, put
Speaker 4: them in little mini skirts and tell them to flirt
Speaker 4: with these businessmen.
Speaker 3: Get them drunk and flirt with them.
Speaker 2: Tell them that quote that Dave dug up.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this is from this is from a woman
Speaker 4: who worked as an advertising exec in nineteen sixty seven
Speaker 4: that said, when it's our businessman gets on an airplane,
Speaker 4: we think he ought to be allowed to look at
Speaker 4: a pretty girl for God's sake, is what I think
Speaker 4: they cut off.
Speaker 2: That was the That was just the general field, the
Speaker 2: zeitgeist for a long time. I mean, that's not like
Speaker 2: that went away, you know decades ago.
Speaker 3: Oh no, for sure, Like, yeah, should probably take a break.
Speaker 2: Huh yes, I think we should, chuck, I think we should.
Speaker 2: So let's do that.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, learn and stuff with Joshua Job stuff.
Speaker 3: You shine up.
Speaker 4: So we mentioned, you know, we got to talk about smoking.
Speaker 4: We mentioned these to handout packs of cigarettes literally at
Speaker 4: first thos Chesterfields, and that was just a thing where
Speaker 4: it was just it was looked at as this luxurious
Speaker 4: activity to sit back and smoke on a plane and
Speaker 4: just relax with your cigarette. And they encouraged smoking, like
Speaker 4: all the way up through the seventies, and it was
Speaker 4: a real problem for flight attendants, especially working. You know,
Speaker 4: there are reports and we may have even talked about
Speaker 4: this in the Flight Attendant episode where they couldn't even
Speaker 4: like see from one end of the plane to the
Speaker 4: other sometimes it was so thick with smoke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and jumping ahead in time, there was actually a
Speaker 2: class section lawsuit from American flight attendant it's not American Airlines,
Speaker 2: American like the United States. Yeah, the three hundred million
Speaker 2: dollar settlement from the tobacco industry because they've been exposed
Speaker 2: to cigarette smoke, whether they smoked or not. Some of
Speaker 2: them developed lung cancer from it and other maladies. And
Speaker 2: they won that, I think in nineteen ninety seven. But
Speaker 2: the reason that they won that in nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 2: is because they've been inhaling that from since the thirties essentially,
Speaker 2: but it really started to get bad. It seemed like
Speaker 2: it from the fifties to the seventies.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: And if we're going on our timeline here, smoking sections
Speaker 4: came about in nineteen seventy one, which is, as Emily
Speaker 4: always says, that's like having a no peeing section in.
Speaker 3: A pool not very effective.
Speaker 4: And then beyond the smoke, people hanging their cigarettes out
Speaker 4: in the aisle, flight attends are literally getting burned like
Speaker 4: cigarette burns on the rag. Finally, in nineteen eighty seven, California,
Speaker 4: of course, said hey, if you're flying within our state,
Speaker 4: you're not smoking. In nineteen ninety federal regulation said no
Speaker 4: smoking if it's a six hour flight or less domestic flight,
Speaker 4: but if you're going for Miami to Seattle, you deserve
Speaker 4: to light up. And then Delta and God all the
Speaker 4: way into nineteen ninety five was the very first airline
Speaker 4: to say no more smoking.
Speaker 3: Ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was among the last I smoked on an
Speaker 2: airplane legitimately, and I think it was in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3: I love that story. It's very great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, this is the smoking section. It's
Speaker 2: just some seats that are designated for the smokers to
Speaker 2: sit and there's no partition or anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's weird looking back in retrospect, it's weird. But also
Speaker 2: one of the things that I didn't realize is that
Speaker 2: still today you'll see ashtrays on airplanes, and before it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, Okay, those are old airplanes and these
Speaker 2: are the ash trays from yesteryear, but you'll still see
Speaker 2: them on brand new airplanes. And the reason why is
Speaker 2: federal law to have an ash tray near the bathroom
Speaker 2: because even though you're not supposed to smoke on a plane,
Speaker 2: they want you to be able to put one out
Speaker 2: if you are the jerk who tries it anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you don't cause a danger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because a fire on an airplane is not good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: And I know I mentioned it on past episodes, but
Speaker 4: I did take one flight, a smoking flight to Europe
Speaker 4: in I think ninety six or so, so internationally they
Speaker 4: were still smoking and it was just awful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This was to Amsterdam on KLM and I think
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five that I smoked, and I smoked a lot.
Speaker 3: Mine was too, buddy.
Speaker 2: I really took full advantage of it because I knew
Speaker 2: it was in the air, that this is this is it,
Speaker 2: it was gonna it was going away, so I better
Speaker 2: smoke them while I got them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I smoked the occasional cigarette back then,
Speaker 4: but I don't know, I didn't have any desire to
Speaker 4: smoke on the plane.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I'm sorry if I blew you out with
Speaker 2: the smoke. No, no, no, that is what a jerk move.
Speaker 2: That is.
Speaker 4: We were not on the same flight, but I did
Speaker 4: fly to Amsterdam as well, but I didn't smoke cigarettes
Speaker 4: on that flight anyway.
Speaker 2: Food, yeah, because I mentioned that the like food was
Speaker 2: like like there would be a guy with a chef's
Speaker 2: hat carving ham next to your seat. It was like that.
Speaker 2: It wasn't always like that. They kind of came along
Speaker 2: in the Golden Age and the I think the thirties,
Speaker 2: the fifties really to the seventies. It started out that way,
Speaker 2: but that was back when you had six passengers. So
Speaker 2: they would make like a mignon of veal and Russian
Speaker 2: sauce on a DC three for United. They more often
Speaker 2: than not, I think, feed you during a refueling stop,
Speaker 2: because you mentioned how long it takes to get to
Speaker 2: Europe and the turboprop plane. That's not just the flying time,
Speaker 2: that's like landing and refueling time, and so they would
Speaker 2: often like set up tables in the hangar whatever and
Speaker 2: feed you like a pretty good meal while you were
Speaker 2: waiting for the refueling. That happened more often than feeding
Speaker 2: you a good meal in the early days on the plane.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, Pan American airlines would come along and
Speaker 4: develop that.
Speaker 3: I know we talked about this on some episode.
Speaker 4: They kind of predated the TV dinner and TV dinners
Speaker 4: kind of came from these airline meals where they had
Speaker 4: a little frozen meal and the little partition tray, and
Speaker 4: that was in nineteen forty six, and the TV dinners
Speaker 4: came along in the fifties.
Speaker 3: But we mentioned that deregulation.
Speaker 4: In seventy eight, Jimmy Carter signed that bill deregulating the
Speaker 4: US airline industry, and that that's when everything changed because
Speaker 4: for the first first time you have this price competition,
Speaker 4: and they were like, we can't afford this stuff. We're
Speaker 4: not going to start giving you know, we're not going
Speaker 4: to give out great food anymore. And you know it
Speaker 4: wasn't great but hot food.
Speaker 2: They made the decision that people wanted cheaper tickets and
Speaker 2: less frills, that they valued a less expensive ticket than
Speaker 2: the experience of flying.
Speaker 3: I was one of those people, by the way, I mean, they're.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, like people do value that, but at the time,
Speaker 2: there weren't really like budget air carriers. That's not true.
Speaker 3: There were.
Speaker 2: There was one I hadn't heard of called Laker Airways.
Speaker 2: Freddie Lake, a rich British guy, founded it and it
Speaker 2: was actually the world's first budget airfare airline. It predated
Speaker 2: Frontier and everybody. But for the most part, like these
Speaker 2: were like the major carriers who now were competing with
Speaker 2: other carriers who like It was just a huge, huge
Speaker 2: shakeup in the business. And what's funny is some of
Speaker 2: the biggest airlines were like, we don't want deregulation. It's
Speaker 2: going to do all sorts of terrible things. People are
Speaker 2: going to stop flying to k mark my words, I
Speaker 2: read like an editorial ad that it's like the kind
Speaker 2: that had a cartoon, like an editorial cartoon and like
Speaker 2: an article. But it was an ad taken out by
Speaker 2: Delta arguing against the regulation. And one of the things
Speaker 2: they predicted was that it would lead to airline consolidation,
Speaker 2: fewer choices, and in the end, higher ticket prices. And
Speaker 2: it turns out Delta was right. It just took a
Speaker 2: few decades because at first ticket prices went down, competition increased,
Speaker 2: there were more airlines that came out of nowhere, and
Speaker 2: entered the market and the consumer won out for a while.
Speaker 2: But then over time, as frills were cut more and
Speaker 2: more and the airlines looked to cut costs more and more,
Speaker 2: air travel just kind of became the living nightmare that
Speaker 2: it is today. Yeah, thanks to Jimmy Carter. I mean
Speaker 2: that was implied, but I just wanted to say it.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean he signed the bill, who pushed it through?
Speaker 3: Do you know that?
Speaker 2: Rosalind?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: Now, I remember even at the time, and still I'm like,
Speaker 4: I just want to get somewhere.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 4: I mean, if it's a really really long flight, I
Speaker 4: can appreciate the inflight service, but otherwise I'm like, just
Speaker 4: make it cheaper and just get us there and leave
Speaker 4: me alone. But what I think doesn't happen is they're
Speaker 4: not like, all right, we're going to cut out the
Speaker 4: in flight service and you won't believe how cheap the
Speaker 4: tickets are going to be. They would just be like, okay,
Speaker 4: now more for us exactly.
Speaker 2: That was the knock on effective deregulation, and I ultimately
Speaker 2: became a disservice to the customer and ended up serving
Speaker 2: the airlines much more handsomely.
Speaker 3: You ever have a bisk Off butter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have, just straight out of the jar on
Speaker 2: a spoon. Mm hm, yes, I have. I like it,
Speaker 2: but I think I've had one too many bisk cough cookies.
Speaker 2: I can't eat them on the airplane anymore. I love them,
Speaker 2: They're good, but I just can't have them though. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what I like. Are those little mustard pretzels?
Speaker 3: Mmm? I don't like those.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I'll trade you my book off for your
Speaker 2: mustard pretzels any day.
Speaker 4: We're great seat mates, just cause book a cigarette in
Speaker 4: the back of the plane. So we're going to finish
Speaker 4: up with a couple of quick bits here in flight entertainment.
Speaker 4: That air Marine Airlines that we mentioned at the beginning
Speaker 4: that was said to put a pin in the first
Speaker 4: international flight from Key West to Cuba. They were the
Speaker 4: very first airline to show a movie too, because in
Speaker 4: nineteen twenty one they put up a sheet at the
Speaker 4: front of the cabin and put up a put up
Speaker 4: a projector and screened how Do Chicago for all eleven passengers.
Speaker 2: And I was like, why would they show a movie
Speaker 2: called Howdy Chicago? Which turns out to be a short
Speaker 2: promotional film for the city of Chicago on a flight
Speaker 2: from Key West to Cuba. And it turns out it
Speaker 2: was not a flight to key West to Cuba. It
Speaker 2: was a flight around Chicago. So the whole thing was
Speaker 2: kind of like a promotional thing. But that was the
Speaker 2: first thing flight movie.
Speaker 3: But still the same airline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same airline they were. They suddenly ended up in
Speaker 2: Chicago somehow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I gotcha.
Speaker 2: And also, hold on, I want to correct myself real quick.
Speaker 2: I said the first discount airline was Laker Airways. That's
Speaker 2: actually not true. The very first discount airline was Pacific
Speaker 2: Southwest Airlines, which started flying cut rate seats in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty nine.
Speaker 3: And is that what Southwest Airs is today?
Speaker 2: I couldn't find that that's the case.
Speaker 3: Now, Okay, so not the same company, No.
Speaker 2: I think Southwest kind of was built out of scratch
Speaker 2: by a couple of Dallas oil meneh Okay.
Speaker 4: In sixty one twa good old Transworld Airlines was the
Speaker 4: first to offer in flight movies.
Speaker 3: This was.
Speaker 4: I sort of remember these when they would just show
Speaker 4: the movie on a screen, a single screen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody watched the same movie together. It was kind
Speaker 2: of cool in that way.
Speaker 4: It was kind of cool, and you know, depending on
Speaker 4: where you were, you could either see it or not
Speaker 4: see it. And then in the sixties is when they
Speaker 4: had the little overhead and I remember these too, the
Speaker 4: little overhead screens, not in the seatback that they were
Speaker 4: just up above you where the air conditioner and the
Speaker 4: light was.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I totally remember that as well. Again, it was a
Speaker 2: communal thing, like people would laugh out. It was like
Speaker 2: watching a movie in a theater, but on a plane. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I liked it. One of the things that was noteworthy
Speaker 2: about it, though, Chuck, is that you if you look
Speaker 2: at old pictures of people watching movies on planes, they
Speaker 2: look like they all have stethoscopes in their ears.
Speaker 3: I remember those.
Speaker 2: I do too, And I was like, why do I
Speaker 2: remember that? It's because so these are these are sound
Speaker 2: delivered through pneumatic tubes. It's not an electronic signal by
Speaker 2: any means. It's just basically an echo that you're hearing
Speaker 2: of the sound being broadcast through tubes that you're connected into.
Speaker 2: Delta didn't phase those out until two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: I remember them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't that long ago. And the little screen
Speaker 4: would fold down from the ceiling yep, and if you
Speaker 4: pinch that tube, the sound would go away.
Speaker 2: I don't remember that part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you pinched the tube of your seat mate just
Speaker 3: to get at him.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't remember that at all. Maybe you're
Speaker 2: not such a great seat made after that.
Speaker 5: Oh, eight eighty eight was when the seatback screens finally
Speaker 5: came around with Northwest Airlines and Wi Fi in two
Speaker 5: thousand and three.
Speaker 4: I believe it was British Airways and Luftanza were the
Speaker 4: first to give you Wi Fi. And now people are
Speaker 4: so so spoiled by all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also it's evolved from the seatback screen to
Speaker 2: your tablet now, Like I've been on fights where it's
Speaker 2: like we don't have the screen, So you better have
Speaker 2: a tablet because right the way you're watching a movie
Speaker 2: pal and I man, I'll throw a temper tantrum and
Speaker 2: get kicked off a plane for that.
Speaker 3: You don't bring a dumb tablet on a plane, No, Josh.
Speaker 2: Clark, they show me the movies Chuck just before we
Speaker 2: finish here. Do you remember there's some defunct airlines? Do
Speaker 2: you remember Hooter Air? No, you don't remember Hooters Air?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. Was it the restaurant, yes, but like.
Speaker 2: An airline, and it flew to date. I think the
Speaker 2: hub was Daytona Beach appropriately enough. Of course I never
Speaker 2: flew it, but I was aware of it.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure the flight attendants wore that outfit.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, like they could have just have stepped out
Speaker 2: of a Hooters. They wore the exact same outfit from
Speaker 2: what I remember.
Speaker 3: Okay, Oh, you actually flew on it.
Speaker 2: No, No, I don't. Okay, I said I was aware
Speaker 2: of it, and sorry, it was out of Myrtle Beach,
Speaker 2: not Daytona Beach. I was way off.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, you know that does ring a little bit
Speaker 4: of a bell now that I think about it. And
Speaker 4: then earlier I remember the I think the first African
Speaker 4: American flight attendant worked for Mohawk Airline and she I
Speaker 4: remember Mohawk from Madmen.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, I knew that sounded familiar somehow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then there was also value Jet you remember them?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure, I flew with Value Jet a lot.
Speaker 4: And of course Eastern Airlines that was a very big
Speaker 4: airline when we were kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there was a I cannot, for the life
Speaker 2: of me remember the name, which is sad because It
Speaker 2: was the first airline I was loyal with, and I
Speaker 2: think it might have been it might have been air Tran,
Speaker 2: which used to be Value Jet. It was air Tran, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember air Tran.
Speaker 2: They used to give you like a free like one
Speaker 2: way leg for like every four or five times you flew.
Speaker 2: It was astounding. It was the best loyalty program around.
Speaker 2: You would get upgraded at the drop of a hat,
Speaker 2: like in like everybody was super friendly. It was so great,
Speaker 2: and I think Delta absorbed them at some point. I
Speaker 2: think probably like the last fifteen twenty years, and air
Speaker 2: Trend went away. It was very sad for me.
Speaker 4: Well, we are Delta loyalists, not to give them free advertising.
Speaker 4: But aside from my wrinkle before the Orlando show, they've
Speaker 4: always done right by me. But you know, shout out
Speaker 4: to Spirit in Frontier and Alaska Airlines and all the
Speaker 4: other smaller airlines because Jet Blue. I flew a lot
Speaker 4: of Jet Blue flights. Are they still around.
Speaker 2: We've been on them. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I want to shout out one more though, too. Midwest
Speaker 2: was a beloved airline out of think Milwaukee, and one
Speaker 2: of the greatest things about Midwest was that after the
Speaker 2: in flight meal, they would bake their chocolate chip cookies,
Speaker 2: and so the whole plane would fill with the smell
Speaker 2: of the most delicious chocolate chip cookies you've ever had
Speaker 2: in your life. They were so good. Yeah, and they
Speaker 2: went away. I can't remember who they merged with, but
Speaker 2: they very quickly were They did away with the cookies.
Speaker 2: They're like no costs Marry.
Speaker 4: That tracks with my in laws, step and Charon have
Speaker 4: a story about a first class flight they took back
Speaker 4: in the day from Ohio where they baked the cookies.
Speaker 3: So it must have been Midwest.
Speaker 2: Well. The cool thing about Midwest is the whole thing
Speaker 2: was all one class. They had huge leather seats, the
Speaker 2: whole plane was that love. Everybody was treated like first
Speaker 2: class on Midwest.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Down with the whatever what would you call that?
Speaker 2: The cattle cars?
Speaker 3: No, just classism, oh, classism.
Speaker 4: Class classism, like everybody the same charge, everybody, the same charge,
Speaker 4: everyone two hundred dollars to go anywhere.
Speaker 2: But give everybody first class treatment. That's that's the caveat.
Speaker 4: Flying was still fairly reasonable up until I feel like
Speaker 4: you mean cost wise, Yeah, I feel like before COVID
Speaker 4: you could still get some pretty good deals. And then, boy,
Speaker 4: I think its just went berserk because I don't know,
Speaker 4: the airline industry got hit so hard.
Speaker 3: But is it also greedflation? I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I would say probably yes. I think the answer to
Speaker 2: most times you say is a greedflation is probably yes. Okay, Well,
Speaker 2: since I said that and Chuck laughed, of course, everybody,
Speaker 2: that means I just inadvertently triggered and stepped right into
Speaker 2: listener mail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a very sweet one from Lou.
Speaker 4: We're thinking of Blue right now because Lou, in real time,
Speaker 4: this is just a few days ago, lost his childhood
Speaker 4: cat of twenty years. Even though she was old, I
Speaker 4: knew she wouldn't live forever. Doesn't make it any easier.
Speaker 4: When I got the news, my girlfriend was out that evening,
Speaker 4: so I was all alone to process it. After some
Speaker 4: crying and looking through old photos of Toots by the
Speaker 4: name is the Cat's name, I decided to seek out
Speaker 4: some comforting voices and resume your episode on Dumb Criminals.
Speaker 3: So it was good for something. Guys.
Speaker 4: I can't stress how much listening to the two of
Speaker 4: you joke around and chat about these daft stories helped
Speaker 4: cheer me up. At the start of the episode, one
Speaker 4: of you even said that you both had a tough
Speaker 4: week and you needed something silly, and listening to that
Speaker 4: app really helped cheer me up. You guys also helped
Speaker 4: me when my grandparents died within a few days of
Speaker 4: one another years ago. When I listened to your episode
Speaker 4: on how death works and in a weird way, it
Speaker 4: really helped me come to terms with what happened. We've
Speaker 4: heard about the death episode in grief a lot over
Speaker 4: the years, so we're proud of those. Hearing you guys
Speaker 4: discuss and explain death intelligently and an easy to digest way,
Speaker 4: intersperse with moments of levity and seriousness when appropriate really
Speaker 4: helped me at the time. So I wanted to say
Speaker 4: thank you. You guys mean a lot to a lot
Speaker 4: of people. All the best and that is from Lou.
Speaker 2: Awesome, thanks, Lou, appreciate it. Sorry to hear about Toots.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Lou did not include pictures of Toots initially,
Speaker 4: and I said, Lou, you got to send me some photos.
Speaker 4: And Toots was a beautiful, beautiful, silly little girl.
Speaker 2: Toots.
Speaker 4: There's one of Toots kick back in a chair with
Speaker 4: her legs spread with a seemingly holding a remote control
Speaker 4: on the couch.
Speaker 3: Awesome kind of sitting up straight. It was very very cute.
Speaker 2: Well, Rip Toots and thanks again to Lou for emailing us.
Speaker 2: And if you want to be like Lou, you can
Speaker 2: send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.