The evolution of air travel

I sat there in the garden the other day, keeping up with the world via my smartphone, when I looked up at a plane on its descent into OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. And I marvelled at how air travel has changed in 30 years.

Just after we got married, my wife and I went to Europe – my first visit, her second. Living in Windhoek, Namibia, at the time, our only option was to fly South African Airways. Because the airline was prohibited from flying over Africa, the journey to London took almost 20 hours. From Windhoek, we flew around “the bulge” of Africa, to land and refuel in Ilha Do Sol, before flying on to Frankfurt. From there, we caught a Lufthansa plane to Heathrow.

I have never forgotten that the airfare was R3 200 each … something like R30 000 each in today’s money. For economy class – or what SAA called “Silver Class” then. And that was the lowest,
“Apex” fare we could get.

For that, though, even in economy class, we got more leg room than I’ve ever seen in that section of the plane; we got proper metal cutlery and even, after the meal, were offered liquers. I had a Cointreau in its square bottle.

Another thing I have never forgotten was the name of the aircraft we flew in … Helderberg. It was what was known as a Boeing 747 “Combi”, where the freight and passengers were mixed. In our case, we sat in the spacious small economy class section on the top deck, right up against the freight bulkhead. Some months later, when the Helderberg was returning to South Africa from Taiwan, that’s where the fire broke out – the fire which eventually brought down the jumbo, with the loss of 187 lives.

I remember I did the booking through a travel agent in Kaiser Strasse in Windhoek and that the telex machine clattered and whizzed while bookings were made with Johannesburg. I physically collected the tickets, with their little red carbon paper inserts, a few days later. When we recently flew to Amsterdam, I booked online with KLM – having worked out the date before hand. I am an old hand now at online booking and did everything in one sitting.

If you “um an’ aah” and come back to the site later using the same electronic device, don’t be surprised if the fare has gone up. That’s because of the wonder digital spies called cookies, which identify that you’re interested in something and look to scalp you accordingly.

I was sent e-tickets by return email, after the payment from my credit card had gone through. Just over R10 000 each … much better value than the SAA flight all those years ago.

Interestingly, on arrival, we met the new border control: with our EU passports we merely placed them face down on a scanner, looked into the camera and then, 15 seconds later, were admitted to Europe.

Flying with my son and his girlfriend from Amsterdam to Prague on EasyJet, we had our boarding passes on our phones (either in bar code or QR code form). And we also carried everything with us into the cabin. That’s the new way: travel light, travel cheap. And, on all our flights, the legroom was far less than it was all those years ago on the Helderberg.

On the KLM plane, it was better than our previous experiences, because it was a newer model Boeing 777, with redesigned seats offering a tad more legroom and better back support.

Coming home, having checked in online, we were then expected to check-in our own hold luggage at Schiphol airport. KLM’s systems are quite simple, though, and putting them into the system – and attaching the labels yourself – easy to grasp. But still … tagging your own suitcases?

I chuckled when I heard the captain come on the intercom. He asked if we, the passengers, could help to save time by closing the overhead bins.

What next? You want me to fly the plane?

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