I also remember that airfares were three times what they are today, which enabled an airline to offer you three choices of garbage...I mean food...as well as amenities in coach. Sure ticket prices have gone up, but by comparison they're cheaper than they were ten years ago. In 1995 I bought a ticket from New York to Dallas for $800. Last month I bought the same ticket for $350 - and that was for a flight during the holiday rush, which is the second busiest time of the year to travel!

She wrote...

What works best of all, of course, is a smile. I trained for six weeks to become a flight attendant. Although the main focus was safety, I spent almost as much time learning good service. Airline employees' frustration and exasperation are all too evident to their passengers.

Yet as I stand at the door and greet my passengers with a smile on my face and a friendly "Hello, how are you?" half the time my greeting is either met with a sour face and goes unanswered or I'm told exactly how they are, which is never good. After four of five snide remarks I eventually stop asking how people are, I'm too afraid! Keep in mind, it's not easy for me, either, but I still try to smile, even though I've been working just under the FAA legal limit. My layover is not the same layover experienced thirty years ago by stewardesses in the past who had 48 hours of free time before having to work one trip home. Based on my schedule of the last six years, I average 8 hours between the time I say "Buh-bye" and the time I say "Welcome aboard" and push back from the gate again.

She wrote...

Once, stuck on a tarmac in Newark for four hours, a planeload of passengers got McDonald's hamburgers and fries courtesy of the airline.

Not only do passengers have to bring their own McDonald's food onboard these days, I have to make sure that the passenger who keeps getting up and down and going into the lav with a cell phone in one hand and a crumpled McDonald's bag in the other isn't up to any funny business. While I, too, trained for seven weeks to become a flight attendant, learning good customer service skills, I was also sent back to training in 2001 to learn what to do in case of a terrorist hijacking. That's why I might not be smiling as I serve drinks down the aisle in coach. I've got my eye on that passenger whose been acting a little strangely. A stewardess never had to carry hand cuffs, etc, in their tote bags, but a flight attendant does.

The decline in service is a direct result of ticket prices today, which is why our flights are always full, staffed with minimum crew, and why people who couldn't afford to fly thirty years ago are flying today? And that, I think, is a good thing, in a way. The airlines are giving passengers what they truly want - affordable prices. Not embossed napkins. People are no longer willing to pay for service, and the airlines can't afford to give it away for free, not anymore, not in this day and age. Which is why all you get on a flight is a cramped seat, a can of soda, and a paper napkin - in coach - while getting from point A to point B as safely as possible and for as cheaply as possible. If better service is desired, you have the option to pay for it by purchasing a ticket in one of the premium cabins. It's up to you.

When I first started flying fourteen years ago, passengers in the premium cabins enjoyed the fine dining experience we provided, which is still pretty much the same service we provide in 2008. Only now, unlike then, the seats in first class and business class are always full. There are more top tiered frequent fliers battling it out for those oh so precious upgrades than ever before. A premium class passenger spends about $6,000 to fly from coast to coast, which in todays weak economy is hard for an executive to justify in an expense report to management, which explains why luxury airlines like EOS and MaxJet went out of business in less than one year.

And with all the electronic devices brought onboard today, passengers in our premium cabins don't really want the long drawn out service of yesterday, no matter what they say, because when they want to eat, they want it now, and they want it fast, and when they're done, they're done!

"Take it away!" I often hear, and before the meal tray is even lifted from the table the computer is out and the fingers are typing.

What bothers me the most about these types of articles, and there are many, is the way in which people still want to compare flying back then to now. Can you really compare the two? No other industry in the United States is criticized as harshly, with such backwards thinking, as the aviation industry. When you talk about those glorious days when all the stewardesses were young and beautiful and wore hot pants and mini skirts and smiled as they lit your cigarette in the piano lounge onboard the 747 to Paris, keep in mind that flight attendants weren't allowed to get married or have children and were subjected to periodical weigh-ins before their trips. Sounds good you say? Well don't forget that with all the glamour came a lot of empty seats. Back then only the privileged could fly. So just remember that the next time you purchase a ticket and want to reminisce about the good old days.

Photos courtesy of (vintage black and white) Carbonated, (Passengers) Heather Poole, (Computer) Heather Poole