In the late 1970s I was a travel agent and it was always a problem getting seats on Indian Airlines (IC, not AI). I arrived in Calcutta with requested seats on an A300 flight to Delhi. Headed to the ticket counter, pushed ny way to the desk and (a feat in itself). explained. Man dissappeared and came back with a LARGE sheetof paper with lots of boxes on it and a name in each box. "What name did you say?". Happily we were both there. From Delhi to Jaipur on a 748 then Udairpur, Bombay, Goa, Bombay all in 737-200s standby on all of them and at least one where wew were told we were 16 and 17 on the waitlist (still got on), one with ceiling panels missing and one where we didn't rotate until we'd gone past the "1" distance to go marker.
Stopping at Indian airports on flights to and from points further east could be interesting. Open the doors and clouds started drifting down the cabin (no jetways then) and the food loaded nearly all had some curry taste but not always described on menus.
I've always been impressed by the climb performance of 757s but I think an Air France 727-200 on the firat flight LON-PAR with a very light load caught me by surprise.
As a child (10 yrs old?) I had a cockpit ride in a Silver City Bristol Freighter Lydd Le Touquet and it was fitted with a Decca Navigatot with a pen over a paper map rolling across the paper map. Almost more interesting than the flying!