Braniff with Style

Oh, what I would do to see the return of a Braniff-like airline! I went to the Braniff Airline exhibition today, at Parco Museum, and it so got me wanting to have been an airline traveller in that era (sixties and seventies). Style was as important as anything else, and they had it in droves. Pucci-designed uniforms, multicolored planes… Flying is such a depressing thing these days, and it just seems to be getting worse. Unless you can afford first/business class that is, and even then, it’s technological and spatial comfort that you’re getting, not the feeling of flying in style that you had with a Braniff-like airline. I want to enjoy air travel, to feel like I’m going through an exciting experience, not just a means of getting from one point to another. It seems that the time could be right for an airline to do something like that, what with the growing popularity of boutique/designer hotels. A lot of people seem to be ready to pay a bit more for style, and that’s a good thing. Without style, all we have is a utilitarian system that lacks the excitement that might help get the whole airline industry out of the financial hole they find themselves in these days.