re: First class in 1988

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I’d bet First Class hasn’t really moved too much relative to inflation.

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And you'd be wrong. So tired of people talking about how great airline travel was back in the day. They never tell you it was expensive as shite and the average person wouldn't fly at all. Yes, it was nice but it was also ten times more expensive than it is now.

Yes, it's a cattle car experience because that's what Americans do- we demand the absolutely cheapest price in every aspect, then bitch when the overall product diminishes when those cost cutting measures are enacted.

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the average flight from L.A. to Boston in 1941 was worth $4,539.24 per person in today’s money, and it would have taken 15 hours and 15 minutes with 12 stops along the way. By comparison, a nonstop flight in 2015 would cost $480.89 and take only six hours.

But we don’t need to go all the way back to the 1940s to see how cheap airfare has become.

Part of the reason flying was so exclusive and relatively luxurious in the '40s, '50s, and '60s was that it was very expensive. Until the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, airlines were considered a public utility and airfares were set by the federal government, which ensured airlines always made more than enough money.

Even after deregulation, a basic domestic round-trip airfare in 1979 averaged $615.82 in today's money. That average fare dropped to $344.22 by 2016.

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Today airline travel is affordable at almost every level of society. 50 years ago, it was only accessible by the upper middle class. Then before this, only the very wealthy had a chance at flying a few times in a lifetime. For 95% of this board, your arse would have been on a Greyhound bus.