GLITZ AND GLAMOUR THAT PREPARED GOLDEN AGE OF AIR TRAVEL FOR TAKE-OFF IN THE GULF
▶ New breed of airlines offered five-star luxury in the skies in second half of 20th century,
Airlines such as Emirates and Etihad are often said to have inspired a second golden age of air travel with new standards of passenger comfort. But what of the original golden age, when flying meant wearing your best clothes, enjoying a three-course meal and perhaps relaxing with a fine cigar?
This was the 1950s and ’60s, when long-distance travel to exotic destinations was for the privileged few, and before lower fares brought flying to the masses.
It was the age of glamorous stewardesses and dashing pilots. An age where new jet aircraft brought places that were once weeks away by ship to within reach in just a few hours in a pressurised cabin.
It transformed travel in the Gulf, once a refuelling stop for the old propeller-driven giants of Imperial Airways on their way to India and Australia but now a destination in its own right, thanks to oil revenue that drove a surge of investment and capital in the region.
By the 1960s, places such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai had built airports and runways capable of handling the biggest longhaul passenger aircraft, and airlines competed to win their slice of this valuable traffic.
The established kings of the air, including TWA, BOAC and Air France, were challenged by new airlines in the region that set out to create their own distinct national style.
Gulf Aviation had been formed by Freddie Bosworth, a former Royal Air Force pilot, in 1949. Flying small twin-engined propeller aircraft such as the de Havilland Dove, it operated out of Bahrain with charters for the oil industry and short-haul hops around the Arabian Gulf.
In 1973, control of the airline passed to Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Oman and Qatar after their rulers bought out a large stake previously owned by BOAC.
Rebranded Gulf Air, it became the national flag carrier for the four countries, introducing routes to Europe, Asia and the Far East with new Lockheed Tri-Star and Boeing 737 jets.
Billing itself as “the world’s five-star airline”, Gulf Air offered new standards of luxury on its “Golden Falcon” service, with restaurant-style dining at tables for four, sumptuously decorated cabins and even onboard telephones.
Its biggest competitors in the region were Egyptair, which had been flying under various names since 1932, Royal Jordanian, which began its international expansion during the 1960s, and Middle East Airlines.
Founded in 1945, Beirutbased MEA had international backers including Pan-Am, BOAC and Air France, and was the world’s 16th largest airline by the mid-1960s. According to Time magazine, “it reported record 1963 revenues of $70 million and earnings of more than $1m, figures that make it the most successful Arab aerial enterprise since the flying carpet”.
It was run by Najib Alamuddin, known as the “flying sheikh”, a title that referred to his family’s prominent position in Lebanon’s
Druze community.
Alamuddin was born in 1909 and educated at the American University of Beirut. He was determined to stamp a distinct Lebanese identity on the airline, hence the cedar tree emblazoned on the tail fin of its aircraft.
As chairman of MEA until his retirement in 1977, he presided over an expansion of routes to prestige destinations such as London and New York, with passengers drawn by Beirut’s reputation as a glamorous playground for the jet set.
An order was made for two Concordes in 1963, with the promise of halving the five-hour journey to London Heathrow. It was cancelled in 1973 owing to operational costs and concerns about noise pollution that meant the aircraft was banned from supersonic flight over land.
By then, Lebanon was on the brink of a 15-year civil war that would leave Beirut’s reputation as the Paris of the Middle East in ruins.
By the mid-1970s the first golden age of flying was over.
The hijacking of four international flights by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in September 1970 ended with three empty aircraft being blown up at an airstrip in Jordan.
Those incidents, and many other hijackings in the early part of the decade, which at one point happened on average once a week, led to the widespread introduction of passenger screening.
At the same time, airline travel was being made available to the masses, with the British entrepreneur Freddie Laker launching his no-frills Laker Air service from London to New York at a third of the price charged by the established airlines.
The big flag carriers had little choice but to aggressively match prices. Laker Air eventually went bankrupt but dozens of other low-cost airlines sprung up. They ushered in a very different experience of flying. Once, passengers could stroll up only half an hour before a flight. Now it was two or three hours.
China plates and threecourse meals were replaced by plastic containers and the inevitable question “Chicken or beef?” for all but business and first-class passengers, while non-smoking cabins were introduced in the 1970s, the first step towards an eventual outright ban on cigarettes, cigars and pipes.
With legroom measured in centimetres and aircraft packed with hundreds of passengers, flying was no longer a question of looking your best, but rather trying to make yourself as comfortable as possible. Yet perhaps the golden age of flying wasn’t quite as glittering as it is sometimes portrayed. The fog of cigarette smoke aside, the passenger jets of the 1950s and 60s could be incredibly noisy by today’s standards and there was no inflight entertainment of any kind.
Flying was also incredibly expensive. The price comparison website Skyscanner has calculated that a flight from London to Sydney, Australia, was five times as expensive in the 1960s as today.
It was also dangerous. In the 1960s and ’70s, there was a passenger aircraft crash more than once a month, on average and, about 1,500 to 2,000 deaths a year.
In 2019, the last year before the pandemic disrupted air travel, 289 people died in plane crashes, more than half of them in the crash of a single Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-Max.
Statistics show airlines suffer an accident rate of 1.5 for every million departures. In 1960 that rate was 27.2.
The first golden age of flying was also the golden age of dying. Aviation has since emerged as once of the safest forms of transport.
Lebanon’s MEA ordered two Concordes in 1963, but cancelled them amid concerns over cost and noise pollution