In Bonnie’s Last Flight, Grieg, a veteran flight attendant, bemoans some of the changes that have occurred in air travel over the last half century. “Ooh, I miss the glamour!” he exclaims. “The 70s and early 80s. The TWA lounge, the flatware, the leg room… Flying was … an event. . . Not something where you roll up in a Juicy sweat suit.”
 
What explains these changes to the flying experience – beyond the exponential growth of the athleisure industry? While many point to the September 11, 2001, attacks as a turning point, it was, in fact, a law passed during the Carter administration that spelled the end of the glamorous era that Grieg is nostalgic for. In 1978, Congress passed the “Airline Deregulation Act” which effectively ushered out the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the government entity that had, since its establishment in 1938, been responsible for regulating all aspects of air travel. The CAB had ensured safety standards were met and that flight routes across the country continued, even to sparsely populated areas. Theyalso suppressed competition, keeping prices high and therefore financially inaccessible for many Americans. But for those select few who could afford air travel, the experience was certainly more of an “event” than the harried, crowded slog we’ve come to identify with a trip to the airport. 
 
New York Times journalist Claire Fahy notes in “Sean Duffy Longs for the ‘Golden Age’ of Air Travel. What Was That?” a November, 2025 article sparked by the Trump-appointed Transportation Minister’s admonition to travelers to “dress up,” that passengers in 1958 could expect to be served hot meals prepared by noted chefs and relax afterwards under a branded wool blanket with a large pillow and padded eye mask. But once the “Airline Deregulation Act” lifted restrictions on fares and access to routes, airlines could fly where they wanted and charge what the market would bear. This led to a surge in competition with the creation of hundreds of new airlines and the expansion of several small regional carriers, resulting in major price drops. Driven to increase their efficiency to keep costs low, airlines began to adopt the hub-and-spoke system, using a few major airports as central connecting points. This meant a rapid increase in airport and air traffic congestion, and the elimination of many convenient nonstop flights that were considered unprofitable.The interior of the plane, and the experience on it, continued to change as well, with leg room decreasing – along with the size and quality of the meals and other perks. 
 
In the 1980s, a series of economic shocks, including a recession and the Air Traffic Controller’s Strike, remade the airline industry once again. Several airlines didn’t survive, with some forced into bankruptcy and extinction, and others subsumed through mergers into larger, well-funded carriers. Southwest Airlines was an example of a new airline that thrived in this era of de-regulation, with their emphasis on no-frills cabin service, and their move out of “hub” airports into satellite airports in major cities. 
 
While these changes all pre-dated September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration’s passage of the “Aviation and Transportation Security Act” in November, 2001 in the wake of the terrorist attacks further transformed the passenger experience, making it even less recognizable from the “Golden Age” of travel in middle of the 20th century. In the years since, not only have screening lines grown longer and security practices more intrusive, but a business “innovation” first introduced by American Airlines has kept base ticket prices relatively low, but ballooned the out-of-pocket costs that accrue after check in. In 2008, as the price of crude oil shot up, airlines were looking for ways to claw back some of their expenses without raising ticket prices.  Recognizing that they would be charged a 7.5% federal excise tax on base prices but not on other goods and services, American Airlines began to “unbundle,” or separate, the cost of various services like baggage check, seating assignments, WiFi use and early boarding from the cost of the ticket. Soon other airlines followed suit, and by 2011, “unbundling” had become common industry practice. Overhead bins have never been the same since. 
 
In spite of the many indignities that these cycles of de- and re-regulation have wrought on the weary American airline passenger, Eliza Bent’s funny, inventive and wise new play Bonnie’s Last Flight reminds us of the fundamental wonder of flight; and the important role travel plays in expanding our sense of possibility and promise – for ourselves, our friends, our family, and the stranger sitting next to us on the flight. As Mark Twain – himself a licensed pilot, though of a riverboat on the Mississippi – once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”