How casual was air travel in 1974?

May 28, 2009 11:09 PM

In the movie The Parallax View (1974), Warren Beatty boards a passenger plane, without a plane ticket. He doesn't have to buy one until the flight attendant comes down the aisle to ask him, "Round trip?" Was air travel really this casual back then, like getting on a train?
posted by Kirklander to travel & transportation (10 comments total)

In the late 1970's one time I took a trip to the NE to do a couple of job interviews. That required me to go from NY to Boston. My travel instructions were to take the Eastern Shuttle.

I didn't have a ticket or a reservation. I followed some signs, which led to a stairway which let me go into the plane. I don't recall seeing any airline personnel at all. Once inside, after the jet took off, the stewardesses (remember, this is 30 years ago) went down the aisles and took money or credit cards from everyone for their tickets. And if you had cash, I don't think they asked for ID.

It was more like a bus ride than anything I was used to from airlines. Or like riding on a commuter train.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:17 PM on May 28, 2009

My father used to have these blank tickets from Eastern Airlines and would fill in the relevant fields himself prior to leaving for the airport. Much more casual back then.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 3:56 AM on May 29, 2009

The various shuttles from Washington to New York and Boston all let you walk on without a ticket. There is a famous story that Richard Nixon (post-president) was on one flight. One of the flight attendants announced that someone had not filled in their credit card slip and asked the person to identify themselves. A passenger at the back shouted, Nixon's the one!
posted by TheRaven at 4:57 AM on May 29, 2009

These are amazing, thanks. I wonder if this only applied to short-distance flights?
posted by Kirklander at 8:30 AM on May 29, 2009

It wasn't common, actually. For most flights you had to have a ticket, and had to show it in order to board.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:54 AM on May 29, 2009

But I think scrutiny of the ticket wasn't near as intense as now; hence the announcements just before sealing the hatch about this flight's actual destination, in case someone boarded the wrong flight, by mistake.

I wonder if this only applied to short-distance flights?
The DC- NY shuttle is a special case. Can you still ride them just by getting on?

And although I watched The Parallax View not so long ago, can't recall any flying (it's that dam scene I recall) -- was Beatty in the NE corridor at the time?
posted by Rash at 1:18 PM on May 29, 2009

Both good questions.

The scene happens right after Beatty has sat in the Parallax View "Happiness, God, Father, Country" brainwashing chair. Then he follows a Parallax agent who has planted a bomb in the airplane luggage. He boards the plane himself in hopes of warning the crew about the danger.

So he's sitting there trying to figure out what to do when the stewardess has him pay for his ticket.

Most of the movie seems to be in the Pacific Northwest but doesn't seem to make clear where the flight is going.
posted by Kirklander at 2:13 PM on May 29, 2009

The DC- NY shuttle is a special case. Can you still ride them just by getting on?

I don't know about DC-NY, but you definitely can't do this DC-BOS.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 6:14 PM on May 29, 2009

If you'd like to get a better picture of what boarding was like back then you might want to read Arthur Hailey's Airport or watch the original movie from 1970 -- the Helen Hayes character uses a scam involving "lost" boarding passes to ride for free.
posted by Rash at 7:51 AM on May 30, 2009

But I think scrutiny of the ticket wasn't near as intense as now; hence the announcements just before sealing the hatch about this flight's actual destination, in case someone boarded the wrong flight, by mistake.

Not to argue with the fact that there is increased scrutiny these days, but much to my embarrassment, inconvenience, stress, etc. I managed to board the incorrect flight last year with today's kind of ticket. Two flights from JFK on jetblue, one to syracuse and one to boston, were boarding next to each other at the same time and i managed to get myself in line on the wrong one. i actually waited until i had heard the second announcement of 'you are on jetblue's flight # x to boston" before i jumped up, because i just thought the flight attendant had misspoken (this has happened to me so many times as well....) i asked the people sitting next to me where they were going....and then i freaked out. anyway, it was early enough that i just let the FA know and we ran to the other plane..... and then i got really paranoid about getting on the right flight and train for quite a while after that...
posted by Tandem Affinity at 4:14 PM on May 30, 2009