What is the one thing you love the most about air travel? Probably the fact that it saves time. It can get you places other modes of transport can’t. What is the one thing you hate about air travel? More often than not, if you ask a frequent flier, it is the food.
You really don’t see much effort from the airline’s side do you? It’s just a tray of disappointment to be honest.
There’s hardly any room. And everything just mixes together. All you can think of is that you spent so much money, you’re closer to the gods right now, but you still need to eat a shitty meal.
Well if that wasn’t bad enough, these photos will make you feel worse.
This vintage collection shows photos from different decades, including the golden age of in-flight dining – 60s & 70s, where food was a glamorous affair and passengers enjoyed sumptuous meals:
Like this guy cutting open some fresh salmon for the passengers on the Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) in the late 60s.
To be honest, this photo from the Qantas 1st class in 1959 looks like a proper restaurant where hot soup is being served on regular tables.
Look at those happy faces on the Scandinavian Airlines in the 50s, ready for a great meal along with the wine they already have sitting on their tables.
That really is a shrimp cocktail on the Scandinavian Airlines, being served in the 60s.
Everything is in a different bowl. How cool is that? This is how food was served on a Boeing 707 Stratoliner in the 50s.
Tell me this doesn’t look like a proper pub where you can dress up and go for an evening chat with your pals? But in reality this is Lufthansa in the 50s/60s.
That’s a huge piece of ham being carved into on the Scandinavian Airlines in the late 60s. From silverware we have come down to plastic. A knife that sharp isn’t allowed on planes anymore.
But neither are chefs who personally put together a sandwich at your seat and serve it to you. This again is SAS.
I’ve had far less impressive looking meals at regular restaurants. But again, the SAS knew how to treat its customers back in the golden age.
Look at the amount of meat on that trolley! I wish I was born in Scandinavia and flying first class back in the 60s.
This is more lounge less airplane. Those windows are the only give-away, but the 70s too were an amazing time to fly the SAS!
Forget up in the air, how many times have you been served breakfast like that on the ground? This, by the way, is on an American Airlines flight way back in 1935!
That lobster is actually shaped like the plane – the Concorde. The model was discontinued and obviously, so was the lobster.
In 1968, there was special food in jars served for babies on the SAS. As of now, there are no jars even for us adults!
Around the same time, passengers were offered some caviar personally served by the chef.
If food could say good morning on a plane, this is how it would say it. This again, is from the 50s on an SAS.
Although the tray looks better than what we are used to, it was the 80s when the decline truly began and now we get to eat muck. So, yeah.
The world misses the golden era so much, that there has been a special restaurant created in LA, where you can walk into a Pan Am 747-200 from the 70s and enjoy the dining experience the way it was meant to be.
Next time you’re amongst the clouds, know that a few decades ago, the skies were filled with better food and alcohol and flying was an experience not just a way of getting around.