Airlines No Longer As Sweet As They Used To Be?

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Skyscanner reveals passengers mourn the loss of boiled sweets and visits to the cockpit with modern day mass market flying.

British Airways put a famous chapter of aviation history to bed last month as the Boeing 757 made its final voyage, while Qantas celebrates the 90th birthday of flights to Australia this month. With this in mind, international flight comparison site Skyscanner takes a misty-eyed look at what airline passengers miss the most from the glamorous age of aviation.

Topping the list of things people miss about flights of yesteryear, with a whopping 40% of votes, was visiting the pilot in the cockpit, now no longer a possibility in the age of heightened security measures and quick turnarounds.
The absence of boiled sweets being offered on take-off and landing was also sadly missed, taking 16% of the vote, however it seems that what passengers really miss is being left alone; more than one in five respondents missed “not being pestered with sales for lottery tickets or other ancillary products”.
Skyscanner.net polled over 2,500 people on what they miss most about the flights of yesteryear with the following remembered most fondly:

1. Visits to the cockpit (40%)
2. Not being pestered with sales for lottery tickets or other ancillary products (21%)
3. Boiled sweeties on take-off (16%)
4. Smoking sections (13%)
5. Pilots wearing hats (4%)
6. Orange make-up on air hostesses (1%)

Other answers from wistful flyers included ‘being handed out 5-packs of Marlboro cigarettes before touch down’, ‘free booze’, ‘a lime slice in my drink’ and ‘the engine roar on take-off - the A380 is too quiet’.

Skyscanner PR Manager, Mary Porter, commented: “Although the rise of budget airlines is undoubtedly a positive thing in that it has made cheap flights and travel accessible to everyone, provided thousands of jobs and advanced cultural exchange, it could be argued that it has come at a price. We have undoubtedly lost that glamorous era of flying.
“I can still remember my mother dressing my sister and I in special outfits for travel, and we would never dreamed of wearing a tracksuit onboard! There was a definite sense of occasion to flying abroad while nowadays I think it is very much taken for granted; my son will have flown about a dozen times before he has even reached his second birthday and so I doubt very much that he will see airline travel as anything out of the ordinary”.

About Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a leading travel search site providing instant online comparisons on flight prices for over 670,000 routes and on over 600 airlines, including flights to New York as well car hire, deals and holidays.

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