Tag: Vintage Travel

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Five Awesome Retro Travel Ads for New Zealand

December 14, 2012 at 11:16 AM | by | Comment (1)

Yesterday we showcased the vintage travel ads of Australia and now we will jump across the 'ditch' and show you five of our favorite ads from the golden years of travel in New Zealand. Just like Australia, New Zealand is far away from many things and it takes a good amount of travel and time to get anywhere. Wanderlust may even run more rampant on the small islands of NZ, as the constant dreaming of far off lands is pretty common.

Before Air New Zealand went super creative with their marketing, most of their ads were all about showing the pristine beauty of the virtually untouched nature and its native Maori heritage. Keeping true to the South Pacific location, while offering passengers lamb for dinner and sheepskin covered first class seats.

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Five Awesome Retro Travel Ads for Australia

Where: Australia
December 13, 2012 at 10:53 AM | by | Comments (0)

We often find ourselves rummaging through boxes in antique shops with an eye out for vintage travel ads or memorabilia. Heck, it's even fun to browse through some replicas of vintage posters just to peek back into time and see how tourism was actually portrayed and marketed. In all honesty, this may be a little obsession of our own.

Australians have always been an adventurous bunch, probably because they are so freaking far from everywhere else and it takes getting on a plane to see anything outside of the nation. As for the continent itself, Australia has been the destination for beach-goers and surfers for many years and it's not a surprise to see the beach culture embraced in travel ads.

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Inside the Iconic TWA Flight Center at New York's JFK Airport (Again)

Where: JFK International Airport [map], New York, NY, United States
October 8, 2012 at 11:32 AM | by | Comments (0)

Off limits. That's sadly how we know the TWA Flight Center at New York's JFK Airport today. No flights fly from it, no passengers check in beneath its departures board, and no cocktails are pushed across the bar of the Lisbon Lounge...any longer.

Unless you're renting out the entire space for a big-budget event or photoshoot (as Banana Republic recently did for their fall/winter 2012 ads), there's no way inside...with the exception of one day when the Flight Center is opened, for free, to the public during the openhousenewyork (OHNY) festival.

This last weekend may have been the 10th anniversary of OHNY, but it's only the second year the TWA Flight Center has participated. The first year obviously went well enough as they extended the hours for 2012, which nicely thinned the crowd to make for ideal photography and a mood that approached conviviality. To put it simply, it just seemed like everyone was truly enjoying being there.

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Chicago's O'Hare Airport (and Air Traffic Control) of 1963, in Video

August 16, 2012 at 10:15 AM | by | Comments (0)

It's Thursday! That means...it's almost almost the weekend, right? And we can spend half an hour distracted by a video from 1963 showing Chicago-O'Hare and United Airlines in all their Mad Men historic glory?

The video below circulated 'round the Twitter #avgeeks yesterday, but it's so delicious that we can't not share it here as well.

We won't spoil it all for you, but here are some things to take notice of:
· The airport at the very beginning, from which the helicopter departs. It's Meigs Field!
· Drooling over that TWA SuperJet livery
· So. many. men. in hats. · "You know, it's hard to believe but last year in this country, there were more than 26 million take-offs and landings handled by air traffic controllers."
· Nice mild Chicago accent on that United co-pilot

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An 'Airline-Inspired' Chair Made for Your Living Room

August 8, 2012 at 7:03 AM | by | Comments (0)

An extra $2,000 or so can’t get you your own airplane, but it might just be able to get you your own airplane seat—kind of. We’ve had our eyes on some aviation-inspired seating surfaces in the past, but now we just spotted a brand new option. We’re not totally sold on this one just yet, but if you’re looking to get us something for the holidays we’re certainly not going to turn one down.

The Flight Recliner won’t be heading anywhere at 35,000-feet in the air, but it will be making its way into living rooms and offices across the globe. Designed by Jeffrey Bernett—he designed some seats for Northwest Airlines—the chair is now on sale for a cool $1,759.50 from Design Within Reach.

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A Few Funny Things about the Union Pacific Railroad in 1941

July 26, 2012 at 11:52 AM | by | Comments (0)

In the spring of 1941, the Union Pacific Railroad issued another of their full schedule booklets. The country was not yet at war, families were still heading off to vacation at National Parks and taking the train to reach them, and metal was for railroad tracks, not battleships. In the summer of 2012, the Union Pacific Railroad schedule booklet for spring 1941 fell into our hands, and we'd like to share a little bit of it with you now.

We've skipped past the timetables to focus directly on the ads that made up the final few pages, the ones advertising special services and upgrades.

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Inside Ohio's New Liberty Aviation Museum and Ford Tri-Motor Airplane Restoration

July 23, 2012 at 5:15 PM | by | Comment (1)


Yes, that's a plane being restored right there

Hey, did you know that Ford once made airplanes?

It was the 1920s and Henry Ford had a finger in many industries, but aviation took a backseat only to cars. During the period from 1925-1933, 199 Ford Tri-Motors were produced in Dearborn, Michigan and Henry himself blatantly bragged that its all-metal, American-built construction made it the "safest airliner in the world."

Ford Tri-Motors are still puttering around, outliving and outflying countless other airplanes. They've lived crazy lives, for example going from Pan Am to drug smuggling in Central America, doing domestic routes in Cuba to hopping between the Lake Erie Islands. It's that last piece of the Tin Goose's history that's being celebrated with the debut of a new museum at Ohio's Erie-Ottawa Regional Airport (PCW), the former home of Tri-Motor operator Island Airlines.

The Liberty Aviation Museum formally opened on Friday, and we were there for the fanfare. Focusing on World War II, the golden age of aviation and vintage aircraft, the museum covers multiple bases for history lovers. However, it's the Ford Tri-Motor that rings most truly with us, having figured in our personal family history. This is a story, told by my mother, of her first flight ever—onboard an Island Airlines Ford Tri-Motor from PCW to Lake Erie's South Bass Island.

Let's continue.

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Name This Airplane.

July 2, 2012 at 6:40 PM | by | Comment (1)

** UPDATE ** The mystery has been solved! You awesome readers reacted on Facebook and via email to say that the airplane above is a National Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation. Edgar van der Meer even pointed out this page on the airliner.

Dear fellow aviation geeks: Can you identify this airplane and its airline?

We have our theories, but the blurriness of this old Kodak print frustrates. Anyway, we recently came across a stash of someone's souvenirs from a late 1950s trip around Alaska. This was the only photo—grabbing our attention immediately—but it was included with a program from an Alaskan cruise and a pamphlet from Mt. McKinley National Park, all from around 1957 (the season date on the McKinley pamphlet).

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The Man Who caught Katharine Hepburn Sleeping in an Airport

June 26, 2012 at 3:44 PM | by | Comments (0)

If there's that gets us as excited about modern air travel, it's retro air travel. You know we're nerds for airplanes of any era really, so when we run across vintage in-flight magazines, as we did recently with United's Mainliner, we just have to share. It was in the June 1962 edition that we first heard about a photographer who specialized in getting those glamorous, movie-star-exiting-the-jet images at Chicago's Midway Airport and now, we're hearing about Mr. Mike Rotunno again.

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune wrote an article on the man, because as it turns out, there's a full-fledged book—"When Hollywood Landed at Chicago's Midway Airport: The Photos and Stories of Mike Rotunno" by Chicago author Christopher Lynch—coming out on Rotunno's life as the original airport paparazzo and his mob ties.

Still, his run-in with Al Capone isn't as interesting as one little story about a certain celeb who had airport habits similar to our own: Katharine Hepburn:

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This German Luggage Company Has Their Own Airplane

May 30, 2012 at 10:51 AM | by | Comments (0)

There we were, just minding our own business, walking along the famous Hohenzollernbrücke that spans the Rhein River in Köln (Cologne), Germany. There was a noise like a low-flying airplane engine…but distinctly not a jet engine. What kind of prop plane would be flying over Köln on a cloudless day?

Naturally with any sort of airplane noise above, we looked up. With the sun glinting off its silver wings, a vintage aircraft buzzed the crowds out along the river enjoying the holiday weekend and pure blue skies.

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The Flight That Brought a Girl Home to Become Queen Elizabeth II

May 14, 2012 at 12:34 PM | by | Comment (1)

Listen to The Beatles' "Back in the USSR" today, and pay special attention to those first couple lines:

Flew in from Miami Beach. BOAC. Didn't get to bed last night. On the way the paper bag was on my knee. Man, I had a dreadful flight.

BOAC. British Overseas Airways Corporation. This airline still exists today, believe it or not; with rebranding, you'll recognize them as British Airways. BA wasn't just a favorite airline of the Beatles, as you'll see in these photos sent to us by British Airways.

That is Queen Elizabeth II arriving at London-Heathrow on February 7, 1952, the date of the Proclamation of her accession to the throne, following the death of her father, King George VI. She was in Kenya with her husband, beginning a tour that would stretch from Kenya to Australia and New Zealand, when she became Queen overnight, necessitating this BOAC return flight to London.

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United Airlines in 1962: Society Soars to 30,000 Feet

May 4, 2012 at 12:20 PM | by | Comments (0)

Look what we found! Why, it's a June 1962 edition of United's old in-flight magazine, Mainliner. This week, we'll be flipping through the pages and learning a thing or two about the United of the dawn of the jet age.

Yesteday we introduced you to a Mr. Rotunno, professional photographer with a single beat: Chicago's airports. Rotunno captured the arrivals of famous actors, actresses, political figures, musicians and more with his lens. He was the modern-day LAX paparazzo, just more distinguished and at ORD/MDW.

Today we see a few of the famous faces Mike photographed, featured here on the last page of Mainliner.

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