Travelling long haul in 1939: Melbourne to New York (2015)

The article doesn't have the cost for the whole journey by air in June 1939. They quote the price of the transatlantic Pan Am flight, which cost (US)$375 in June 1939 one-way, and from the linked newspaper scan, the round trip was $650, so roughly $12k in current dollars. [1]

On the other hand, in June 2018 the cost for a Sydney-London round-trip (a significantly longer route that also faces less competition than transatlantic flights) in first class on Qantas was (AU)$10,700 [2], an equivalent to (US)$7-8k now (depending on whether we take current or historical [3] exchange rates).

"First class" nowadays can mean different things on different airlines, routes, and equipment but prices are generally well south of $10k, with the possibility of paying a lot less if you're willing to do your research and are somewhat flexible. This was not an option at the time.

I think only the Concorde could compare to these 1939 prices: a NYC-London round-trip would be $13k if it still operated. [4] But other than that, the current first class offerings are less expensive.

1. https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=650&year1=1939...

2. https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/the-cost...

3. https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/historical-data.html#excha...

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

Roosevelt traveled aboard USS Quincy. Churchill joined him in Malta. (For the record, Stalin took a train.)

https://archive.org/details/secondworldwar00beev/page/709/mo...