> you mention the suits, so it's clear they are people of some higher status

Not really; having and wearing a suit is something that has increased in association with formality and higher class; it used to be de rigueur for a much wider slice of society, outside of contexts (e.g., actually doing physical work at the time) where it was inappropriate.

A lot of air travel was for work because it was so expensive, thus the suit wearing. You can hunt around for some pictures of flying in the 60s and 70s and fine no shortage of people in vacation gear or 'street' clothes but back then even street clothes were more formal (you'd toss on a sports jacket or fedora without thinking twice about it for even yardwork). A lot of what we see today in photos are carefully crafted PR and marketing pieces. People back then didn't have smartphones to photograph an average cabin, so we see these wonderfully staged photos of a gorgeous stewardess carving up a turkey for a well-dressed and posed family, which isn't exactly something common in flight. Do you really want someone on an aircraft that can jostle at any time holding a carving knife at your neck's height?

Also, that's not a plane, its a Hollywood set. You can't open the door mid-flight as the pressurized cabin won't allow you, at least past a certain year when all airplanes standardized on the inward opening door. Everyone is thin and glamorous looking because they're actors. Everyone is well dressed because the costume department made it so (no ill fitting suits or out of fashion dresses and skirts). No crying babies because it would ruin the drama. No elderly people having a coughing fit. No dirty looks if you happen to have the wrong skin color.

I also don't see how people smoking is supposed to be this wonderful freedom loving thing. As someone old enough to have been around where people smoked next to you all the time in just about any social setting, it was disgusting and unbelievably rude and entitled, on top of being a major health issue for those exposed to second-hand smoke, especially children. I'm not sure what the GP was implying but you don't want to go back to those days. A recent week in Japan reminded me of my childhood and that aspect of my trip was fairly unpleasant.

I feel like this is akin to working for a small company versus a larger company. Rules always cater to the lowest common denominator, because the people that make the rules are lazy and prefer blanket policies over stratified ones.

In a small team, the internet is not all clamped down at work. You are more likely to be treated like a mature adult. At a large company, they treat everyone like children because that one imbecile did that stupid thing that one time.

Now, the risk in acknowledging this phenomena is that you come off sounding elitist, "I want to join an exclusive club so I don't have the cretins dragging me down."

I remember it being aft. But yeah, I absolutely choked on planes.

Pretty sure William Shatner was about to smoke while sitting on the left.

It's probably not reducing the overall exposure to carcinogens, but there's something to be said for not sitting right next to someone while they smoke.

Like car travel, but significantly safer.

I'm pretty sure you had lots of leg room in a car in the 50s.

I flew from Tel Aviv to New York in 1997 and the plane still had a smoking section.

I flew from JFK to Heathrow in 1986 (don't recall the airline but assume it was either a major US carrier or British Airways) - I vividly remember the cabin being full of cigarette smoke. I suppose there must have been a nominal "section" but can't remember.

According to Wikipedia:

"After years of debate over health concerns, Congressional action in 1987 led to a ban on inflight smoking.

The U.S. ban on inflight smoking began with domestic flights of two hours or less in April 1988, extended to domestic flights of six hours or less in February 1990, and to all domestic and international flights in 2000."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflight_smoking

Even as late as 1995, I remember flying from South Africa to the UK (in the non-smoking section) while the guy behind me (in the smoking section) was smoking extremely smelly eastern European cigarettes. Quite an adventure when you're prone to airsickness.

I flew internationally extensively in '00/'01 and that must have been just after it was banned. I remember an Olympic flight from London to Athens where the now-standard "you can't smoke" announcements were made, and the signs were all turned on, and the second the wheels left the tarmac fully half of the plane lit up.

In the same period I flew Air France, to Senegal if memory serves. Again, no smoking and all that, but the stewardesses all bundled up in their galley, curtains closed, and were puffing away.

Bizarre to think about now.

Worse still, at the time of this episode (1963), there wasn't even a notion of a "Smoking Section". Smokers lit up anywhere on planes, anywhere in restaurants, anywhere in the office, on line at the bank, in any sort of waiting room, really anywhere in general. The very concept of a "Smoking Section" wasn't a thing until the 70's, and it was years before they were ubiquitous in the US.

I recall a trip to Japan in the early or mid 90s where I was dumped in the smoking section by mistake. Very long flight.

When I was a boy in the 80s it was still common. My parents didn't smoke, so I loved going on planes, or into restaurants & hospitals (!) to smell smoke. I'm sad that we've lost that culture.