re: Did people hang out at airports for fun prior to security checks?

A different take on this:

I was returning east from a meeting in Utah and I had a wait in Chicago (the big airport not Midway). This little old lady sat next to me and we started to chat. I asked her where she was going.

"Oh dear, I'm not going anywhere. I just come out here to see all the people of the world walk by. For me, it's like going to Heaven and to the Pearly Gates where all of the people will walk by. Coming out here makes me feel good. "

I worked for Royale Airlines at MLU in the early 80’s. There were only three of us, we worked the counter, put your bags on the plane, did the pre boarding security check announcements. Same thing in reverse on inbounds. The bar upstairs was awesome, Freddy Krueger could find a date there.

I remember going with the YMCA to "Ryan Airport" on field trips. We would watch the planes takeoff and land through the windows next to the boarding areas.

When I was a kid all planes served meals and people smoked cigarettes on the fricking plane!

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I know someone who lives a short train ride from a major airport and travels frequently. This person admitted that several times a year they use points to book a same day flight, take the train to the airport and go to the airline lounge to eat/drink, then cancel the flight before boarding and head back home after a few hours.

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Back in the day we had these places called malls where you could do the same thing if the mall had a bar inside.


Now malls are becoming extinct and becoming Amazon warehouses or data centers.

You can go eat at MSY (Louis Armstrong New Orleans airport) without having a flight.

I still do.

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Did people hang out at airports for fun prior to security checks?

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I still do.


Messina's Runway Cafe:



At the time of its opening, Lakefront Airport, then named Shushan Airport, wasn’t just the biggest airport in the region. It was the largest airport in all of America, and the very first combined land and seaplane air terminal on the globe.

More than 10,000 visitors gathered as Lakefront Airport was dedicated to be “the Air Hub of the Americas.” Strategically located on a man-made arrowhead peninsula, the airport’s creation involved driving a 10,000-foot retaining wall into Lake Pontchartrain and pumping six million cubic yards of hydraulic fill to raise the field above water.

The airport boasted a 3,000-foot-long field, earning the highest rating from the U.S. Department of Commerce, AA-I. The architectural grandeur and the AA-I rating made it a standard for its time.

The airport featured state-of-the-art facilities, including tennis courts, a swimming pool, a post office, a surgical suite, and exquisite Art Deco details inside and outside the main terminal building. Murals by artist Xavier Gonzalez, friezes by Enrique Alferez, and a captivating array of stone wall and floor treatments adorned the terminal.

Amelia Earhart, the pioneering aviator, left an indelible mark at Lakefront Airport in New Orleans during her transatlantic flight in the 1930s. Making it the second stop on her historic journey, Earhart stayed at Lakefront Airport for a night, taking advantage of the airport’s unique offering of hotel-style rooms.

“I’ve flown over your airport here numerous times, and it looked so nice from the air that I decided to land and see how it looked from the ground.”
-Amelia Earhart

The old run down Monroe Airport had a Lounge in it where we used to go get hammered.