In the 1960s, flying the “friendly skies” was a whole lot friendlier. Flying was the glamorous way to travel; passengers dressed to the nines, and classy flight attendants served five-star-restaurant meals. In 1957, the iconic Pan American World Airways (Pam Am) paired with the famous Parisian restaurant Maxim’s to create high-end French cuisine and launched a fierce competition between all airlines jockeying for first-class passengers. The next year, Pan Am introduced daily international flights from New York to Europe and again elevated in-flight dining by adding china, silverware, and pristine tablecloths to the service. Other airlines soon followed suit by also offering upscale cuisine, replete with French champagne, French wines, and top-shelf liquor.
Pan Am one-upped its competitors by installing electronically heated quartz grills into the galleys so flight attendants could cook steaks to order. These quartz grills used infrared technology that could heat up to extremely high temperatures and sear steaks in minutes, thus enabling flight attendants to serve them to the entire first-class section in no time. One can only imagine the tantalizing aromas of grilled meat permeating and torturing coach passengers for whom steak wasn’t an option.
Flying in coach, however, wasn’t the claustrophobic nightmare it is for economy passengers today, and they also dined on gourmet fare, like stuffed guinea hen, and they certainly didn’t suffer through the present-day airline meals that Gordon Ramsay refuses to let past his lips. Pan Am put such emphasis on food that attendants went through grueling training for cooking and serving.
Airline dining will never be the same again
Trans World Airlines (TWA) and Braniff International Airways also served steak – Braniff draped it with steak Diane sauce — and Eastern Airlines launched an all-steak flight to Florida that both first-class and coach passengers enjoyed. Magazines and newspapers were packed with ads of drool-worthy photos of meals other airlines served that featured rolling carts groaning with gourmet fare, like lobster, chicken Kiev, and roast beef. TWA’s Royal Ambassador first class even featured Elizabeth Taylor in an ad that targeted other wealthy jetsetters.
Although cooked-to-order steak was offered only on a few airlines, others installed convection ovens in airplane galleys for roasting beef. Roast sirloin of beef was also served cooked-to-order, and again, flight attendants were trained in knife skills and techniques so they knew how (always slice away from the passenger) and where to carve well-done to rare portions. Pan Am obsessed over every detail of service, including specially designed carts for serving a varied menu of dining selections, take-home recipes, and curated wine and cocktail pairings for each course. The “Mad Men” era was in full swing when luxury was the word for flying.
But as flights became longer, the volume of food served on airlines increased, and labor costs — especially the salaries of consulting restaurant chefs — skyrocketed. Airlines were forced to economize, and in Pan Am’s case, its penny-pinching efforts angered labor unions, who, in turn, retaliated. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 resulted in these once-glorious airlines declaring bankruptcy years later, and in-flight grilled steak became a thing of the past.
