BRING BACK THE ROMANCE AND FUN OF TRAVEL

OPEN YOUR WINDOW SHADES AND ENJOY THE FLIGHT!

These are my musings about when travel was exciting, entertaining, adventurous and fun.  Primarily in the second half of the 20^th Century, find stories of the people who ran the business, the antics of travelers from the business world, celebrities who the author has run into, executive’s and VIP’s from around the world.

I emphasize airlines and air travel, but nothing is off base if it pertains to the travel world. Let’s share how travel used to be, especially back in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s.

There will be many photo’s and videos, stories of adventure traveling the world, and sharing of airline memorabilia, like the 191 airline menu’s I have, videos of flights on Concorde, DC-10’s, photo’s of 707’s, DC-8’s and venue’s all over the world. Unlike today, where you fly in darkened, depressing cabins, we had the window shades open to enjoy the flight and the views of our beautiful world!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I, Kevin Brady, have a diverse travel background including working for airlines such as Pan American World Airways and National Airlines in the sales and frequent flyer departments, a travel management company in New York handling corporate travel, and managing global financial services travel for over 20 years.  I have been on 1,907 airline flights in my life, which is equivalent to being in the air continuously from January 1 to October 1. I have taken 551 different trips with airline flights - I do not count car/road trips but have taken quite a few of those as well (notice there is something I don't count). At 38,000 feet you are above 85% of the atmosphere, probably being zapped by all sorts of cosmic, x-ray, and who knows what kind of rays. Add in a little red wine and my wife says this explains a lot about my mental state.

I have been lucky enough to travel all over the world, mostly in premium classes such as first/business, when airline management employees were treated like royalty, and when managing airline and other travel vendor contracts like hotels and rental car companies, when they wanted me to experience their best products and services. Someone had to do it!  I have also met many celebrities and VIP’s as well as executives in the travel business.

I have plenty of great stories to share with all of you who love the travel business as much as I do. I hope to add yours as well as I am putting together information for a book.

Come along with me on the longest commercial non-stop flight ever, Singapore Airlines flights 21 and 22

First Commercial plane over the North Pole - come along!

Take a ride over the north pole with me on the inaugural Newark-Hong Kong flight 99 on Continental Airlines March 1, 2001.  It was the first twin engine commercial plane ever to fly over the pole.  On board were dignitaries from China and Russia, whose air space we flew over, and some scenes from Hong Kong itself, including our ride on the famous star ferry, drinks at the Regent at sunset, a visit to the bird auction (this was before the bird flu, as many Chinese keep birds and carried them around in cages)

At the time, it was the longest non-stop in the world at over 8,000 statue miles and took us 15 hours and 43 minutes.

Come along on this historic event!

Kevin B

 Northwest flight 4 SEA-JFK 747-100 (note the doors that open on the cowling at higher RPM's

 United DC-8 51 parked at LAS

 TWA Boeing 707 departing London Heathrow

 Same flights approaching BOS

 United 218 departing LAS for ORD and then EWR - Dinner to Dinner in First Class!

 United 992 DC8-61 ORD-HNL May of 1975

 United 218 in flight out of ORD

 National DC-10 near Lake Mead

National flight 474 out of LAS headed for IAH

When Planes had Lounges

Back in the 1970's and early 80's, many wide-body aircraft had first class and even coach lounges. This was true even on domestic flights. While some of the premium international carriers have them today on the AB 380, they come with a very hefty priced First Class ticket, usually over $10,000 each way. Back in the "good old days" the lounge came with the price of a regular first or coach ticket. American Airlines had a coach lounge in the back of the 747 which they mainly used on trans-con flights, which had tables, lamps, couches, and  piano.  All for the price of a coach ticket, just like today.

Below we have our friendly first class flying nut friend John Barrett in the front of a Pan Am 747SP on flight 100 to London from JFK, seat 1J, his favorite seat, with his favorite drink, Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch. This plane may have an ugly interior, but blame that on Braniff, the carrier that Pan Am leased the plane from.

Below are Peggy and I returning from our first Orient trip on Northwest flight 4 from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Seattle - we are in the upper deck of the 747 in the first class lounge after climbing the spiral staircase. We both tried to give it our best "spoiled snob" look for the photographs.  It was 1976 and I got passes for us from the Northwest Sales for $123 total - And that was for 7 flights in first class JFK-SEA-HND (Tokyo Haneda, Narita had not been built yet), HND-TPE-HKG then return HKG-HND-SEA-JFK.  We could have paid $88 for coach.  Hmm, let's see, it would save us $35 total or $5 a flight to downgrade.  It was a really tough call.