January 21, 2010
The First Jumbo Jet Passengers
Sorry about the delay, folks. A Pan Am flight attendant, ca. 1970.
Forty years ago today, Boeing’s 747 Jumbo Jet made its commercial debut on Pan American’s New York-to-London route.
The flight didn’t go exactly as advertised. The widebody’s 352 passengers and 20 crew members sat on the runway for two hours, waiting to take off from Kennedy Airport, before Captain Robert Weeks noticed a malfunction in the #4 engine and decided to head back to the gate. The passengers debarked (a group of protesters, who had loudly complained about the 747′s noise and pollution, taunted them with “We told you so!”) and were treated to dinner in the terminal while Pan Am rustled up a replacement jet. Twenty of the original passengers bailed out right there, choosing to miss out on the historic first flight.
The stand-in 747, hastily christened “Young America” (the name of the original airplane) finally took off at 1:52 a.m., 27 minutes after it was supposed to have landed in London. The rest of the flight was uneventful, although television producer David Susskind, one of the inaugural passengers, must have still been fuming when he sarcastically told a reporter after landing, “It was the most sensational flight experience I have ever had.”
Also on board that night were Mrs. Martha Topera of Fort Worth, Texas, (who wanted something special to tell her grandchildren); George Marchen, a manufacturer from New Jersey; Austin Wilson, a “New York jazz and ‘semi-rock’ trombonist; and an unnamed passenger who told a New York Times reporter that the 747 looked like “Radio City Music Hall with wings.” Mrs. Joseph Lusk of Medford, Massachusetts complained to the Times, “Frankly, I prefer the 707. There are just too many people here and too many helpers to wait on them. And I’m not the kind to feel hemmed in. I have eight kids.”
The return flight to New York carried just 196 passengers. The reason: A seven-hour delay getting off the ground. Seems passenger rage isn’t a modern invention.
Is this when the phrase – “Time to spare, go by air!” – was initiated?
Comment by Glyn Laird — January 23, 2010 @ 1:30 pm
I flew the on the first American Airlines 747 flight from LAX to New York. The plane left on time. In those days they had a lounge bar on the upper flight deck. It was a fun trip in a very big plane.
Ed Peltzman
Comment by Ed Peltzman — January 23, 2010 @ 9:25 pm
I flew on a red eye 747 between SFO and JFK for the first time in August 1971 as a 17 year old with some high school buddies. The flight was largely empty and we threw a mini-football in the aisle until the steward told us to “cool- it” and sit down. I’ve flown on 747′s countless times since but there was nothing like that first ride.
Comment by Gary Siepser — January 28, 2010 @ 8:30 pm
I flew from Paris to New York in July 1970 on a Pan Am 747.
The plane was almost empty. I ended talking to the flight attendants. I became a friend of one of them and was able to see her once on the street in London 8 years later and one more time at Heathrow in 1980.
She even came once to where I live, Buenos Aires.
Flying was so different than what it is nowadays!!!
Comment by roberto blanc — October 17, 2010 @ 10:13 am
[...] every airplane has had its share of problems when it first gets introduced. How about the 747? Its inaugural on Pan Am was delayed for hours on end when it had an engine problem. (The early Pratt engines were nothing but trouble.) [...]
Pingback by About Those 787 Problems - >> The Cranky Flier — January 15, 2013 @ 6:45 am
[...] each aeroplane has had a share of problems when it initial gets introduced. How about a 747? Its inaugural on Pan Am was delayed for hours on finish when it had an engine problem. (The early Pratt engines were zero yet trouble.) [...]
Pingback by About Those 787 Problems | Thailand Visas — January 15, 2013 @ 11:12 pm