Food in the Air and Space by Richard Foss

Author:Richard Foss
Language: ara, eng, fra
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2014-11-17T18:37:14+00:00

chapter 14

Jumbo Jets, Excess, and Cultural Expression (1966–1975)

When the Boeing 747 was introduced in 1966, it was a revolutionary aircraft, two and a half times the size of the 707 that had been the standard for the world’s long-haul fleets. Runways had to be lengthened so it could land, airport terminals expanded to hold the 342 passengers that could be flown in what was then the typical configuration. (Later variants would hold more than 400.) Development of the 747 had taxed the ingenuity of the designers and manufacturer and was going to do the same thing to the people who had to figure out how to serve meals aboard.

The aircraft was developed partly because of a pioneer of the industry—Juan Trippe, who had started Pan Am in 1927 and was still president of the company. Trippe saw the huge airliner as the answer to the problem of airport congestion, and he and Pan Am’s engineers were involved in its design to an unprecedented degree. Pan Am ordered the first planes in April 1966, and the inaugural flight operated in January 1970 between New York and London.

The 747 utilized one feature that had only previously been seen on the Russian Ilyushin jets—a galley in the belly of the aircraft, with an elevator to carry food up to the passenger level. In these “lower lobe” galleys, trays could be prepared assembly line style in a purely functional space passengers would never see. It was a clever way to use undesirable space and increase the number of seats, and it was vital to serving food for the hundreds of people aboard. For that giant coach compartment, every decision came down to how to save labor. Pan Am, which had the giant aircraft first, had to work out how to allocate staff to feed what had once been a flying restaurant but was now more of a flying mess hall. Former flying boat purser Sam Toaramina found himself in a new position called flight director aboard a 747, overseeing the largest service crew ever assembled aboard one airplane.

As flight director I think I had 16 or 17 stewardesses on that flight. There would be four people working in the back, another four for the business area, and then the other five or six in first class. . . . And you had the dining room upstairs. You had to put two people up there: you had someone to cook the food, then maybe a helper, because you had 12 people seated upstairs to feed.1

That upstairs dining room became a signature of Pan Am; though other carriers used the space for additional seating or bars and lounges, Pan Am tried to maintain the gentility of an earlier era. Flight director Jay Koren remembered that he found himself in the unusual position of trying to figure out which passengers would make the kind of interesting dinner party group that he was trying to assemble.

Selecting those to be seated in the Dining Room was the responsibility of the flight director.

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