Originally Posted by
D120A
BOAC Boeing 707-436 G-APFG, 21st July 1964, London Heathrow to Hong Kong....... All the passengers were smartly dressed, the men in suits and a good proportion of the ladies wore hats......
Thanks to Captain Jasinski for an inspiring visit to the flight deck
I have a BOAC timetable for 1956 with some small ads with artwork interspersed. There is one photo showing a couple in their seats on the aircraft being waited on by the steward. The man is in his EVENING WEAR, no less, black tie et al, while his wife is in full regalia including her diamonds and neclace. They seem aged about 65. This I guess is how the image was of long-haul in those days. The irony is that it was aboard primitive, excessively noisy from the props, hot in the tropics (because the air-con was poor), bumpy (due to low flight levels), fatiguing aircraft taking maybe a couple of days to reach their destinations. And they dressed like this.
Regarding "Captain Jasinski", an article in Propliner magazine a while ago about the BOAC Canadair Argonauts in the 1950s said that BOAC at the time had a couple of Polish flight deck crew, ex-Polish Air Force Spitfire pilots based in Britain in WW2 who had married British girls and stayed on. Possibly the same.
Originally Posted by awerobelly
Air Canada ..... smoking and non-smoking sections. One on one side of the central aisle and t'other on t'other. To a non-smoker this did not constitute a smoke-free area in any way at all!
This strange arrangement lasted longest on Eastern European airlines, into the 1980s. Can't imagine why but there must have been some basis for it.
Both BEA and Air France were among the earliest customers for Viscounts, they came on line in 1952-3.
It never fails to amaze me the number of children from BOAC days who remember these, and indeed possibly still have them. What a gift to airline promotion they were, possibly the most cost-effective bit of airline
PR there was. Are you listening, someone in BA marketing over at Waterside ?
Yes, greatest arrival, of course. 3 hours 8 minutes from JFK. Once only, alas.