The past is another country. Want proof? Between 1953 and 1970, United Airlines offered a flight called the Executive that flew between New York and Chicago on the East Coast and between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the West Coast at five p.m. weekdays. Weekdays because, once upon a time, Saturdays and Sundays found every businessman successful enough to fly the Executive in a hammock in New Rochelle or Wilmette, just as far from an airport as a man can possibly get. Rush hour—after the deals have been negotiated and the contracts inked, after the junior managers have been scolded and the secretaries goosed: that’s when the Executive took flight.
The selling feature of the Executive, which would not stand up to Supreme Court scrutiny even with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the bench, was not who flew but who was prohibited from flying: kids and women. Or, as Frank Sinatra, who, had he not owned a plane, would surely have flown the Executive, might have put it: No punks, no dames. In fact, the only women allowed on board were the flight attendants, every one of whom, per unwritten rule, was good-looking and single. You were to notify your airline boss the moment you put that ring on your finger.
