Jet Engine
The Jet Engine and the Revolution in Leisure Air Travel,
1960-1975
Peter Lyth
Air transport for European tourists got off to a shaky start in the late 1920s.
1
But it was to be thirty years before leisure air travel was to appeal to anyone but the rich and adventurous. High cost, fear of flying and the absence of toilets in early airliners (an unfortunate combination) were the main deterrents; the unpressurized aircraft of the inter-war years were noisy, slow and not especially comfortable despite the efforts of some airlines to make aircraft cabins resemble the first-class state- rooms of an ocean liner. This changed fundamentally after 1958: with the introduction into airline service of the Boeing 707, the Douglas DC-8 and the de Havilland Comet 4, aircraft were capable of flying fast, high and with hitherto unknown smoothness. The jet age had arrived. This paper considers this "age" and its impact on tourism in the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that while the revolution in
European leisure air travel that took place in these years was obviously the result of social and economic change (more disposable income, a greater propensity to take foreign holidays and the entry of new capital into the independent airline industry), there was also a critical additional factor. This was the breakthrough in transport technology represented by the jet engine and it is on this aeronautical artifact that the paper's main focus will lie.
I
Technological change was crucial to the process of economic and social modernisation in both the 19 th and 20 th centuries. New technologies of power generation, manufacturing, transport and communications changed the world and shrunk time and space. What is generally termed "Fordism" grew out of the mass production of automobiles to encompass a whole array of practices and institutions that now underpin modern Western society
2
. In the wake of Fordist mass production, a
Fordist lifestyle of mass
1960-1975
Peter Lyth
Air transport for European tourists got off to a shaky start in the late 1920s.
1
But it was to be thirty years before leisure air travel was to appeal to anyone but the rich and adventurous. High cost, fear of flying and the absence of toilets in early airliners (an unfortunate combination) were the main deterrents; the unpressurized aircraft of the inter-war years were noisy, slow and not especially comfortable despite the efforts of some airlines to make aircraft cabins resemble the first-class state- rooms of an ocean liner. This changed fundamentally after 1958: with the introduction into airline service of the Boeing 707, the Douglas DC-8 and the de Havilland Comet 4, aircraft were capable of flying fast, high and with hitherto unknown smoothness. The jet age had arrived. This paper considers this "age" and its impact on tourism in the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that while the revolution in
European leisure air travel that took place in these years was obviously the result of social and economic change (more disposable income, a greater propensity to take foreign holidays and the entry of new capital into the independent airline industry), there was also a critical additional factor. This was the breakthrough in transport technology represented by the jet engine and it is on this aeronautical artifact that the paper's main focus will lie.
I
Technological change was crucial to the process of economic and social modernisation in both the 19 th and 20 th centuries. New technologies of power generation, manufacturing, transport and communications changed the world and shrunk time and space. What is generally termed "Fordism" grew out of the mass production of automobiles to encompass a whole array of practices and institutions that now underpin modern Western society
2
. In the wake of Fordist mass production, a
Fordist lifestyle of mass