The Jet Engine and the Revolution in Leisure Air Travel,
1960-1975
Peter Lyth
Air transport for European tourists got off to a shaky start in the late 1920s.
1
But it was to be thirty
years before leisure air travel was to appeal to anyone but the rich and adventurous. High cost, fear of
flying and the absence of toilets in early airliners (an unfortunate combination) were the main
deterrents; the unpressurized aircraft of the inter-war years were noisy, slow and not especially
comfortable despite the efforts of some airlines to make aircraft cabins resemble the first-class state-
rooms of an ocean liner. This changed fundamentally after 1958: with the introduction into airline
service of the Boeing 707, the Douglas DC-8 and the de Havilland Comet 4, aircraft were capable of
flying fast, high and with hitherto unknown smoothness. The jet age had arrived. This paper considers
this "age" and its impact on tourism in the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that while the revolution in
European leisure air travel that took place in these years was obviously the result of social and
economic change (more disposable income, a greater propensity to take foreign holidays and the entry
of new capital into the independent airline industry), there was also a critical additional factor. This
was the breakthrough in transport technology represented by the jet engine and it is on this aeronautical
artifact that the paper's main focus will lie.
I
Technological change was crucial to the process of economic and social modernisation in both the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries. New technologies of power generation, manufacturing, transport and
communications changed the world and shrunk time and space. What is ge ...