Onboard an NAC flight in 1977, also known as “the burnt orange age of travel”.
“Air travel is a miracle of American ingenuity,” says the campaign video voiceover. “Flying was a bastion of civility. But today …”
Chaos ensues. The montage of real-life passenger behaviour includes hair-pulling, punching and a pair of pink heart-emblazoned pyjama bottoms that should not have left the house, let alone a runway.
“Let’s bring civility and manners back,” says America’s transportation secretary Sean Duffy. “Ask yourself, are you helping a pregnant woman put her bag in the overhead bin? Are you dressing with respect?”
(I image-searched New Zealand’s own Transport Minister and the 10th photograph of Chris Bishop showed the member for Hutt South wearing a pink shirt and a mullet. He looked like he was auditioning as an extra in The Unruly Tourists. Respectfully).
Never underestimate the power of a sharp suit but when you live in New Zealand and want to go to say, Europe, the worst thing that can happen to you on a 24- to 35-hour flight is, literally, the 24- to 35-hour flight.
On the sliding scale of things I hate about planes, my seatmate’s dress is less of a concern than the fact that I have seatmates – including ones I am related to by law.
My husband is such a dreadful flyer that when he begins his deranged pacing and cabin calisthenics, I feign sleep or pretend I don’t know him. Once, I did drift off. When I woke, I found him (eventually) standing in semi-darkness in the extra legroom space of the front row of the economy cabin.
“They paid for that space,” I hissed. “Do you not think they might have thought you were Very Very Weird?” His response was not reassuring. “I wasn’t staring at them the whole time.”
Flying brings out the belligerent. It gives people a disproportionate sense of entitlement to space and it skews their sense of time. My sister-in-law, for example, won’t join a boarding queue until the eleventeenth second.
“There’s no point,” she says.
“But imagine if everybody thought like that,” I reply. (I am speaking in capital letters but my lips are not moving because the worst place on earth to argue with someone is the tail end of a queue heading for a confined space you will be sharing for 24-35 hours).
Air New Zealand’s flight crew have gone through almost as many uniform changes over the years as its passengers have enjoyed hot dinners.
How should one dress to ensure one doesn’t bite anyone en route to Europe? Air New Zealand’s online chatbot Oscar suggested something tidy and comfortable: “On medium and long haul flights, stretchy clothes are good. You need to wear footwear for health and safety reasons, unless you’re a baby. Baby’s twinkle toes are allowed to go barefoot.”
(Oscar had clearly missed An Unexpected Briefing – the 2012 safety video that features gnarly Hobbit toes at 32 seconds and, near the two-minute mark, feet so hairy the stubble sprouts through the socks). Could I take my shoes off mid-flight?
“Are you asking about liquids, aerosols or gels?” replied Oscar.
America’s civility campaign harks back to the “golden age” of travel when seats were wider, passengers were thinner and people were too busy lighting cigarettes and using real cutlery to kick the back of your seat or listen to Ed Sheeran in flight mode without their earphones.
TEAL air stewardess wearing small hats and 1961 El Jay for Christian Dior uniforms.
In 1955, a flight hostess for TEAL (the company that preceded Air New Zealand) suggested the most comfortable clothes for women on air journeys were “a lightweight suit, nylon blouse and a small hat”.
In that civil and menthol cigarette smoke-scented age of travel, complimentary gifts for lady fliers on the national airline included plastic bathing suit holders and hibiscus fans. Across the Tasman, on Ansett’s actual “golden jet” evening services out of Sydney and Melbourne, air hostesses wore lamé gowns, turned down the lights and served spatchcock, crayfish and champagne to a backdrop of “sweet music”.
It sounds lovely. But it’s no Cookie Time cookie or gluten-free brownie.
Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016 and is a senior journalist on its lifestyle desk.