Tuesday, June 11, 2024

The Golden Age of Travel

I remember the Sundae Cart in first class on United!
I read an article from the CBC regarding the changes in air travel.  I hear many people complain about how it's changed.  Travelling by air now is like bus travel.  You get a seat and everything else is extra.  I am amazed at the price of flights since COVID.  I had a one way cruise booked in 2022 from Vancouver to Sydney with one way premium air $1995.00 per person.  Princess Cruises decided to cancel the ship I was booked on and I had to rebook on another Princess ship.  The air went to $3495.00 per person!  I just checked and today it's $3569.00 for a one way ticket in Premium Economy!

In 1984 when I worked for PWA, we finally got the coveted Vancouver-Calgary direct route.  I would go to Calgary for the day to attend meetings.  Sometimes I would go via Kelowna, but if that flight was full I would go on a two stop flight!  It made for a very long day.  When they started the direct Vancouver/Calgary route, they offered a hot steak dinner to compete with Air Canada!  To watch the flight attendants deliver a hot dinner to 138 passengers and then get the trays from the passengers in a 1 hour and 10 minute flight was amazing!  If you sat near the back, you had to eat fast.  Of course people still smoked in the last few rows so it wasn't a favorite place to be.  When you fly standby they let the flies on before the airline employees.  You had to dress in business attire and be happy when you got a middle seat in the back smoking row.  

This week I am trying Porter Airlines for the first time.  Their seats are two abreast, you can get 36 or 34 inch legroom in the first eight rows.  They have free wine and beer and premium snacks in economy along with free wi-fi.  Now I know why Air Canada decided to give free beer and wine with premium snacks on their flights.  I hear their premium snacks are pretzels from Alberta!  Premium???  I'll report on Porter after my first flight with them.

If you want to read the CBC article:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/golden-age-air-travel-1.6726341


Happy Boxing Day!

We had a wonderful Christmas.  Getting together with family is what Christmas is about.  My daughter, Cheryl, had the entire family over and...