Passengers Boarding Commercial Airliner, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Passengers Boarding Commercial Airliner, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Passengers Boarding Commercial Airliner, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-8FA4C9

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A man in a gray suit and fedora carries a child up the boarding stairs of a twin-engine commercial aircraft marked with a blue and gold fuselage stripe and winged insignia. A uniformed pilot stands by the cabin door, observing. A woman in a light coat waits on the tarmac. In the 1950s, commercial air travel was formal enough that men wore suits and hats to fly, and airlines had pilots stationed at the cabin entrance to oversee the boarding process personally, as though the flight were a minor ceremonial event that required witnessing. Within fifteen years this scene would be replaced by one where passengers filed onto planes in ordinary clothes, where pilots stayed in the cockpit, and where boarding became a transaction indistinguishable from entry to any other crowded space. Here the man carries his child as an ambassador of respectability, which is what you were supposed to do when you flew.

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