with smaller planes (707), on shorter distances, with 3 or 4 engines, carrying less passengers, more calmly, pax did not carry-on all their luggage, with flight engineer, and everthing was good.
"good" being a relative term of course. Extra engines don't really count if they have a propensity to throw turbine sections or blow the cans out through the cowling every other flight, shorter distances would be a good thing with navigation aids that were more of an art than a science (no GPS in those halcyon days), not knowing where the red bits were in the weather fronts certainly added a sense of adventure to flying, and said flight engineer working like a one legged man in an arse-kicking contest trying to balance fuel, Nh, and all the electrical loads that our friend Mr Software does so well these days. But despite all that, at least pilots were employed for their Airmanship skills, and not their accountancy, value propositions and investors in people knowledge.