Ah yes, I remember it well... The thing I miss most are loved ones waiting for you at the gate. It was so heartwarming to see others too - the hugs and kisses. And it was nice as a college student having family wait with you until the plane took off. Stewardesses were pretty and nice and it was a fun adventure.

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I remember traveling by plane with my Grandmother when I was young. It was a trip from Maine to Oregon, but even that long of a trip was almost as much fun as the week vacation we were headed to!

My grandmother made sure that I was dressed NICELY, but comfortably. My mother carried me to the gate to say goodbye to us. The stewardess gave me a pillow and a small blanket and snacks. We even had a meal that we didn't have to purchase from the attendants and didn't come cold in a box! We watched a movie on free headphones.

I remember being excited about leaving Oregon because I got to go on a plane again. This time we had breakfast-hot crepes wrapped around cinnamon apples and sausage links!

It's been twenty years and I still remember more about the plane rides than I do about my actual time in Oregon!

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The thing I miss the most is being able to go to the gate. Whether it was to see people off, meet them when they got here, or just visit with someone who had a semi-long layover. Now people just get to sit in the airports alone while they wait.

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I'm going back even further with reminders of air travel. My first flight was with my mom and dad in the late 1960's. People dressed up to fly. All the men wore suits, and women dresses. I even saw a few women with mink stoles on in coach class. No one wore jeans. We could sit wherever we wanted, no boarding passes, and the flight attendants were actually happy to wait on us. We were served meals on real dinnerware in coach, and received a hot towel after dinner was over. This was just a short hop from Indianapolis to New York City.

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I will always remember my first flight after 9/11. It was November of 2001, a few days before Thanksgiving, and I was flying out to Las Vegas from Newark, New Jersey. It was so wierd and surreal because not only did you have the long lines, the metal detectors, the pat-downs, and so on, it was only 2 months after 9/11, so there was the National Guard troops and Port Authority police. I know that the soldiers were there to protect us and everything, but seeing men in combat fatigues with assault rifles made me just a bit uncomfortable. I miss the days when they gave you meals on flights, you got free soda and snacks, you were greeted by courteous employees who actually cared and knew what they were doing, and you didn't have to pay 10 bucks a bag to check your luggage.

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Once, MANY years ago, I was flying from DC to NYC with my young son and when we landed, the pilot let my son sit in his seat and put on the headphones to listen to the airport traffic. Can you imagine that happening now?

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I remember being allowed to be funny without being arrested. Picture this: June, 2001. The famlilar "bing" goes over the loudspeaker, followed by the captain's warm baritone voice: "We're about to begin our descent into Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. We should be landing in about 45 minutes." I stand up and declare, "DALLAS? I THOUGHT THEY SAID DULLES! AREN'T WE GOING TO WASHINGTON?" The flight attendant comes over and we all have a good laugh. Imagine if I were to try something like that today!

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Airport secuity is nothing new, it's only been ramped up. I was born in 63 and I can always remember metal detectors and later in the 70's x-ray machines. When my family was leaving Japan during the vietnam war I remember the Air Force using Explosive Trace Detection machines.
What I do miss is food on the airplane and nice young flight attendants. Now we have the ageing fleet and no peanuts.

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I am older than most of you (75), but I will never forget my first commercial flight on TWA fom La Guardia to St. Louis - 1949. My mother took me there to look at prospective colleges. We dressed nicely. There was one class of service on the "super connie". Our meal was served hot on real china, on a tray sitting on a pillow on your lap. On each tray was a mini pack of Chesterfield cigarettes (5 in a box). My mother took them away from me. The stewardess had a full selection of magazines and asked several times if we needed anything. The flight was 4 hours - a speed record of that day. What a treat to remember this.

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Bad behaviour used to be rewarded. I used to show up about 30 minutes before the flight. Folks running late were given head-of-the-line advantages!

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I remember as a kid flying between Chicago-O'Hare and Knasas City Municipal, across the Missouri River from the GM plant on Fairfax Avenue.

TWA flew 707s, which were fun for landing at KC with a runway that was barely long enough for, what was then, the largest commercial airplane in the skies.

The stewardesses (that's what they were called), almost had to run serving full hot meals in coach, 2 at a time (no serving carts).

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If you want a hot meal on a flight, check out Thai International. I was flying from Bangkok to Cambodia, which is barely a one hour flight. In that time, they managed to serve a hot breakfast to everybody on the aircraft, both business and coach. As I remember, it wasn't bad for airline food.

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I am 37, I can remember flying to Arizona in 1988 with my best friend to go visit my dad for our senior trip. We sat in the back of the plane because that was the smoking section! I could barely breathe from the thick cloud of cigarette smoke and every armrest had the little tiny ashtray that was overflowing by the time you landed. I think back now and can't believe we were allowed to smoke on a plane. (I remember smoking in the hospital when I was admitted in 1992 too!)

My husband travels for work and my son and I also miss being able to be there to watch his plane come in and meet him as he got off the plane. :(

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I remember going up to the observation deck of Phoenix Sky Harbor Terminal #1 (now a parking lot) and watching my dad walk out onto the tarmac and up the steps and into the plan (propellor of course).

I think many of todays restrictions are stupid and sensless!

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I can remember when I looked forward to an air flight rather than wishing there could be another way to go. I believe that it starts with the airlines, i.e., they need to charge a reasonable fare and restore the amenities that made air travel a pleasure. Sufficient room to be comfortable, decent meals, pleasant stewards and stewardesses (enough of them on a flight so that they have time to be pleasant), and on-time performance need to be restored as the norm. If this precludes some travelers due to cost, perhaps the airlines could offer a select number of flights that would do this and keep the majority of flights for the lowest price traveler. I know that we have business class and first class alternatives today but they are prohibitively expensive for the non-business traveler.

Security needs also add to the discomfort of air travel and I believe that we need to accommodate the safety requirements but we need to do it in a way that is caring and respectful of human dignity. Screeners need to be better trained both in how to actually find contraband as well as how to effectively deal with the traveling public, most of whom are both cooperative and respectful of the screeners.

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Air travel also used to be much classier! People dressed more nicely - and I'm only going back 35 years or so - and everyone was just more pleasant. Flight attendants weren't hassled, travelers weren't rude and seats were comfortable. Nowadays unless you fly business or first, a seat on a Greyhound is more spacious than an airline coach seat - and an Amtrak seat is comparable to a first-class airline seat. It used to be fun to fly. Now? Forget it. Flying is the cross one has to bear to get to their destination.

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I've been flying since I was a kid (I'm currently 17), and I do miss being able to arrive at the airport with 15 minutes to spare, and still be able to make your flight (if barely...those ticket lines are a pain.)
Gone are the days when you don't have to strip down everytime you go through a metal detector, and say goodbye to bringing drinks from home. (or toothpaste, baby formula, etc.)
No more family waiting for you at the gate, so the moment you step off the walkway you are on your own (unless your family happened to be flying in right before you.)
I miss food on planes too. Continental Airlines was the last I flew that gave a real meal (a sub sandwich with chips is what I remember having...do they still have that??)
Now we have to arrive an hour and a half early to ensure we'll get through ticketing and security with time to make it to the gate, bring extra money for a drink inside the airport, and keep our belts unbuckled and shoes untied until we're approved by the TSA.

I miss my old flying days (and the kids room in the airport with the SNES/N64 and the pretzels, where they'd take you between flights.)

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