I was fortunate to make several trips by air in that decade. I’ll add to what you have that (in addition to being less common) air travel had a different character then: people dressed up (similar to going to church). I’m just as happy that characteristic of air travel is no longer with us.

The John Wayne movie, “The High and the Mighty” (which I saw on DVD about a year ago), has several things about air travel in the 1950s that are similar to what I remember (and which are much different from today). These include the dress, on-plane smoking (ash trays were built into seat armrests), and lack of air terminal security. Of course, the “exciting” part of the movie’s plot (multiple engine failures, if I remember correctly) was not something that I ever encountered.

I do recall my first flight on a jet (a Boeing 707) probably around 1958). This was the first plane I was on (that I remember) which had drop-down emergency oxygen. As we taxied away from the gate, the pilot announced that this was a brand new plane — we were the first paying passengers to fly in it. As we lifted off the runway (when we were perhaps 15 ft into the air) all of the oxygen masks on the left hand side of the plane dropped down. We continued on to our destination (something they might not do today). The stewardesses (not flight attendants in those days) had difficulty stuffing the masks back into their storage bays. Apparently, they were designed so that once the latches opened to release the masks, they could not be relatched without a special tool. The stewardesses eventually used tape of some kind to hold closed the hinged panels at the bottom of the masks storage bays.