The Airline Time Machine Podcast

There’s a long history behind the “mile high club” lore, dating back to the 1780s. Stories of romantic interludes while at altitude hit the news pretty regularly over the years, but usually because of police involvement, and legal charges being filed.

With this episode of the Airline Time Machine podcast, I’ll look at how people “getting romantic” in the air came about, the challenges that are created for airline crews and other passengers, and notable incidents that likely resulted from “love aloft.”

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Not too long ago, cigarette smoking was widespread, and permitted, onboard most passenger airliners worldwide. 

A lot of travelers boarding flights today who don’t remember that era would likely be surprised by how prevalent inflight smoking was, by the way the process was managed, and by the smell of aircraft cabins and the damage that lit cigarettes caused to airliner cabin furnishings.

With this podcast episode, let’s take a look at the history of smoking onboard airliners, how that smoking was gradually regulated out of existence, and a few traces of that smoking past you can still find on your next flight.

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It's OK - this doesn't involve some sort of domestic pet violence. But this episode title highlights that assigned airport codes can sometimes appear to be something very different than their original intended purpose!

Three-character codes that identify individual airports are critical for managing air travel safely and accurately, but the code an airport ends up with may not make sense when you first come across it, and often reflects much more than the airport's name.

This is a look at how the airport codes we use today - as passengers, travel planners, airline staff, or airport managers - first came about, and we’ll explore a few of the more unusual examples!

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In February of 1995, one of the busiest airports in the U.S. - Denver's Stapleton International Airport - closes, replaced by the new Denver International Airport several miles to the east.

Over the next few years, the massive infrastructure of Stapleton Airport, including its terminal building, hangars, parking facilities, support structures, and miles of runways would disappear, largely erasing more than 60 years of aviation activity.

This is the story of how a busy international airport was entirely replaced in just one night, then was erased from the landscape to become something entirely new!
 

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In 1985, more than 200 airlines provide scheduled passenger service on U.S. domestic routes under their own names and branding, and the country's airports are busy, crowded centers of activity.

But four decades later, only fifty airlines remain serving U.S. internal routes, and only fifteen of those operate airliners with 100 or more passenger seats.

This is the story of how the number of U.S. airlines soared by the early 1980s, then hit a 20-year period of intense consolidation - and we'll learn where all the airlines went!
 

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In mid-1977, a small European airliner company had been in business for about ten years, but had only one aircraft type on offer, that had sold less than thirty units to four airlines, without a single sale in the past 18 months. 

Here's the story of how a struggling U.S. airline headed by a former astronaut put together an unconventional deal that strengthened the airline, opened the giant U.S. market to the young airplane maker, and created a pathway for that company - Airbus - to become the world's largest airliner manufacturer. 
 

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In 1936, most airline passengers are flying in small, loud, and uncomfortable airplanes, limited to short distance routes. But for a few travelers, long distance flights on the German airship "Hindenburg" mean sleeping cabins, gourmet meals, an onboard bar and promenade deck, all while comfortably crossing the Atlantic to New York or Rio de Janiero. We know the "Hindenburg" had a disastrous end in 1937, but for a magical six months a year earlier, there was no finer way to fly - here's the story of what life was like for passengers and crew onboard the largest flying machine ever built.

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From the 1920s until 1939, there's only one way to fly as a passenger between Europe and The Americas... and the trip doesn't involve an airplane! Here's the story of the giant German airship "Graf Zeppelin" that pioneered airline travel across the Atlantic between the World Wars, before airplanes were capable of safely crossing the ocean.

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