Apparently nostalgic for the Champagne, pillbox hats and soft-lit glamour that supposedly characterized the skies in the 1950s and ’60s, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy urged airline passengers to dress nicely and mind their manners ahead of the year’s busiest travel week.
“Are you dressing with respect?” he asked in an online video. “Are you saying please and thank you?”
Doing so, Duffy suggested, would help to usher in a new “golden age of travel” — a phrase that harks back to the mid-20th century flight experience. The video was part of a Department of Transportation “civility campaign” that aims to tamp down on in-flight fighting and other “unruly passenger behavior.”
The PSA leans hard into earlier-era romance. It opens with Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me” layered over grainy airport clips as a narrator proclaims that “air travel is a miracle of American ingenuity. … We respected the dignity of air travel. … Flying was a bastion of civility.” Moments later, the footage jumps to passengers brawling in terminals and shouting at flight attendants before Duffy appears on screen urging travelers to bring bygone civility back to air travel.
Duffy’s call to action didn’t land smoothly. The video was mocked over social media and on “The Daily Show” this weekend, when host Ronny Chieng asked, “Are manners the most important thing for the FAA to be dealing with right now?”
According to historians and industry analysts, not really.
University of Nevada aviation historian and former airline pilot Dan Bubb said, although civility is important — and violent incidents are unforgivable — manners and mink coats won’t fix the problem. That’s because the cabin experience of today is all-around unrecognizable from the blue-blooded “golden age” Duffy seems to miss.
First off, planes had spacious interiors back then, Bubb said. Some American Airlines flights even featured a live piano lounge, and professional chefs aboard Pan American World Airways served lobster and caviar on fine china. There was Champagne and free cigarettes on offer. And stewardesses were subjected to dubious age, weight and skirt-length limits — as airlines featured their “sky girls” in racy advertisements, such as National Airlines’ “Hi, I’m Cheryl. Fly me” campaign.
One thing was clear, flying was endowed with a sense of occasion, if only for wealthy passengers and businessmen.
“They got filet mignon. They got mashed potatoes, green beans and chocolate cake for dessert,” Bubb said. “Now we’re lucky if we get a cup of water and a stale bag of peanuts,” Bubb said.
The DOT’s account, he added, leaves out the commonplace frustrations shaping the passenger experience today.
“Yes. It’s very important to be civil. Be nice. Be helpful. At the same time, I think Secretary Duffy has to take a hard look at what flying in economy looks like when people are crammed together and they’re fighting for the overhead-bin space. You can’t blame them for being a little bit edgy,” he said.
Cabin service dominated industry business models until the late 1970s, when Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, which ended federal control over airline fares, routes and market entry. The bill set in motion a fierce period of competition and market consolidation.
The winners were niche budget airlines and the big four — American, Delta, United and Southwest Airlines — which by the 2000s had already cut the excess fat from the passenger experience. Aircraft were redesigned to support hundreds of passengers with fewer crew members per head, while seats were clustered ever closer together. Legroom has plummeted by 12% to 20% between the 1990s and today, studies show.
Meanwhile, companies implemented pricing algorithms to ensure flights stayed fully booked and began charging for basic amenities including carry-on bags, legroom, food and blankets, according to Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and president of Atmosphere Research Group.
“In doing so, airlines created a very crowded, stressful environment on the plane,” he said. “Long airport security lines don’t help. Neither do long lines at the ticket counter and baggage check. By the time we get onto the plane, we’re on edge, we’re exhausted, we’re afraid, and the slightest thing now sets people off.”
Harteveldt said these close quarters often lead to altercations on flights. The DOT said incident reports doubled in 2024 compared to 2019, while one in five flight attendants experienced physical incidents in 2021.
“There’s no question we’ve lost sight of what makes travel fun — the excitement, the relaxation, the cordial conversations,” Duffy said in an appeal to holiday travelers last week to dress up, be polite and assist fellow passengers. “Americans already feel divided and stressed. We can all do our part to bring back civility, manners, and common sense.”
An analysis of DOT data confirms the rise in incidents since the COVID 19 pandemic, when conflicts over wearing masks boosted the number of reports of unruly passengers. Still, 2024 saw about 1.25 incidents per 10,000 flights, the vast majority involving verbal altercations, failure to follow crew instructions or intoxication. Violent episodes are rarer still, but they remain a serious concern, especially for crew members who deal directly with passengers.
“The violence that we have seen between passengers and with passengers attacking crew members has absolutely no place on a plane at any time,” Harteveldt said. “But Secretary Duffy’s call for people to dress up as a way to fix it? Nice try. That’s not going to go anywhere. And in fact, I think that undermines the message.”
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