Saturday, October 10, 2009

50 Years Ago Today: First Global Airline Service

On this date in 1959, Pan American World Airways announced the first global service for passengers. Mercy, how international travel has changed in the last 50 years.


Are you one who traveled internationally before 1959? If you sailed overseas to work please share your story. If you were on an early international flight, please tell us about that! I'm assuming getting your luggage scanned was not a requirement!







PanAm began the first scheduled service to Russia nine years later in 1968.
(Photo courtesy LIFE magazine.)



How about you dear blog reader? Do you remember your first international flight? Or even your first flight? I'm betting we have some interesting stories out there!

4 comments:

Jeanette said...

Yes! It was in 1970 - Air France charter (I think) from Los Angeles to Paris. Wow...I didn't know that international flights had only begun 11 years before that. I remember the flight well. We were a group of 50 college students going for a quarter abroad. I remember being absolutely crammed into our seats...never getting up to use the bathroom (how did I do that?) and a white-knuckle thunderstorm that we passed through over the Atlantic. I also remember lots of French food being served to keep us content. Definitely stuff memories are made of. I was 20.

Eileen said...

Oh Jeanette- was that your first international flight? Or first flight - or both? How neat to be on a charter flight w/ lots of other students. I'll bet you kept a journal that quarter, yes? Oh, what an experience - at 20! Is that when the travel bug bit 'cha? So I'm guessing you speak some French? Oh what an opportunity!

I was on a Qantas charter flight from San Fran (your neck of the woods) to Sydney in 1976 - my first international flight. We were 300-some teachers going to fill slots in public schools of NSW. Oh my - I was fresh out of college and...my education was only just beginning. (If you know what I mean!)

Jeanette said...

It wasn't my first flight. I flew from Dallas to Los Angeles after my freshman year of college. One of my college friends and I drove from Santa Barbara to Wichita Falls where she lived. Hard to believe we did that...two 19 year old girls traveling by car across country. Crazy!

No...I don't speak French! I studied Spanish, German, and now Russian. But I definitely have the travel bug--not so much to be a tourist anymore, but to experience other cultures and people in the more day-to-day sense. That's why mission travel is so exciting for me.

Eileen said...

Jeanette - you DROVE LA to WF? Tell me you didn't! But of course - promise that you had AAA and took your cell phone. What did you parents think about that?! / I'm with you on traveling - like to do the day-to-day thing more than the tourist bit. Aren't we fortunate?!