I have no problem, for example, with people wearing shorts and sandals onto a plane.īut there comes a point, and what I do have a problem with, is the idea that otherwise reasonable protocols of civility, manners and courtesy cease to apply when you’re at an airport or on an airplane. Maintaining simple dignity doesn’t require anything too formal. That’s fine, and I don’t want to sound snobbish about it. With nearly four million people flying every day of the week, across every strata of culture and class the world over, standards of decorum are going to fall. As a result, almost everybody does it.Īnd as the demographics have changed, so have the levels of behavior. Flying today is far cheaper than it used to be. Even into high school I frequently met other kids who’d never flown. When I was in junior high, in the late ’70s, maybe a third of my classmates had ever been in an airplane. Not all that long ago, only a fraction of the population could afford to fly on a regular basis.
One of the reasons, though, that people once took flying so seriously, is that so few of them had the means to partake in it. And that was on a trip to Florida, of all places, as recently as the early 1980s. I remember my dad putting on a tie before we left for the airport. I’M OLD ENOUGH to remember when people dressed up to fly.
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