https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/golden-age-of-air-travel-downsides/index.html
My first flight was when I was in college, circa late 1985 or 1986. I flew from KSYR to KDFW and back for a Job Trip. I didn’t end up moving to Dallas, instead I moved to Washington, DC. The rest is history…
I used to fly quite a bit for work during the 1990’s, I racked up about 50K miles a year with American Airlines back when I worked for TGV. For the record, I was the fourth (in terms of start date) or fifth (in terms of accepting an offer) “guy” at TGV and I (mostly) look back on those days with fondness and pride.
While certainly not the “Golden Age”, commercial aviation was still pretty good in the 1990’s. Of course, it is now total crap. The CNN article points out correctly that the “Golden Age” was not perfect for a variety of reasons. Probably one key thing to remember is that back then it was too expensive to travel by air often. Airlines like Pan Am would advertise about “Once in a lifetime” experiences. So, flying back then may have been fabulous… but if the goal was to get somewhere, you probably couldn’t afford to do it very often.
I don’t fly very often anymore. If I have a choice, I prefer rail.