Last night I attended Alitalia’s combined 60th-anniversary-of-its-founding and its 50th-anniversary-of-flying-to-the-U.S. gala party at Gotham Hall. GT’s publisher, Fran Gallagher, was the MC for the occasion. Part of the decorations were blown up photos from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s of celebrities who had flown on Alitalia. They included Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti, Maria Callas, Gina Lollobrigida, Sean Connery, Marcello Mastroianni, Roger Moore, and several opera singers who I did not recognize until they were pointed out to me. Talk about glamour, elegance and bling! Celebrities today and their handlers haven’t a clue how to pull it off. Today they all look like street urchins.   The photos were taken in the days before the jetway was invented, so the celebrities were standing on the stairs, either about to ascend or just stepping onto the tarmac. The one thing noticeable in all the pictures is that all the other passengers who just happened to be in the photos were as dressed up as the stars were. It was the period when travel, and especially air travel, was a glamorous and elegant experience. Everyone on board was dressed up, including passengers in coach. It was the era before everyone started dressing down. It was also the time before the airlines started cramming as many people into the plane as possible, before the grim-faced TSA people dominated the travel experience and before passengers became just revenue sources. It was when everyone was treated like a first-class passenger, or at least, a valued customer.   On the flip side, it was also a time when far fewer people flew because most of them could not afford it. The same can be said for traveling to Europe via the ocean liners…all very elegant, but the glamour side of the experience was not readily accessible to the masses.   Although it is great that so many people today can travel around the world in whatever attire they choose, it is still a treat to have a look at how it was when transatlantic air travel was relatively new and a special occasion worth putting one’s best foot forward for. 

–Dick Evans, Vice President