By now, even a drop-dead beautiful female beauty queen has worn a pair of heels to travel.
But a glamorous flight from the 90s was once much more exciting.
The blue-sky decade dubbed the “golden age of travel” was the last time people with disposable income flew in private planes, yachts and even helicopters.
And ladies in particular had nothing but admiration for planes over water.
One is Mary Mason, who made herself famous in the early days of rock ‘n’ roll dancing on the sides of airplanes.
She would often be found dancing with the barefoot headliners of late 1960s and early 1970s British Invasion bands The Kinks and Squeeze, who often had their photos taken together on private jets.
“That was kind of the young flutist,” Mason told history.com. “I’d stand at his feet for quite a long time and occasionally the plane would take off.”
During those days, the glamorous world of flying was foreign to many Americans. Most took commercial flights, which could be hard to take off and land.
Famously, the first on-board airlines to set up shop in the US were Stewart Air Travel and Pan American World Airways.
Pan Am’s Caravelle luxury liner was the first jet to fly nonstop to Antarctica from New York’s JFK Airport.
Its 333 passengers aboard the Caravelle included Sean Connery, Princess Diana, Barbara Walters, Elizabeth Taylor, Walt Disney, Laurence Olivier, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Hope, Aristotle Onassis, Michael J. Fox, Bobby Kennedy, and Dalton Trumbo.
Its luxurious flights filled up immediately. They reportedly attracted prostitutes along with business people, politicians, actors, and wealthy celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Bob Hope.
Funny enough, none of the passengers bothered to wear any shoes at all, since the plane has lavatories in every room.
After the death of John Lennon in 1980, there was panic that the Beatles and Paul McCartney had become members of the Crawdaddy gang.
Though some were able to afford the three-day trip, the rest of us had to spend our money on a plane ticket and then travel coach.
For more, check out this outstanding article by CultureMap about classic planes.