plane reservations by telephone—a new experience for former rail travelers,
Passengers made
plane reservations by telephone—a new experience for former rail travelers,
who usually bought tickets in person. The air passenger would phone the airline
office, which in the early 1930s was often at the airport since airports near
larger cities were staffed around the clock. Tickets consisted of a long series
of paper coupons that detailed every leg of the trip. Toward the middle of the
decade, more airline offices opened in downtown areas. Airlines also introduced
the practice of issuing prepaid “scrip” to their regular passengers to pay for
their tickets. Each paper slip in a booklet of scrip was worth a particular sum
of money. When the passenger bought a ticket, the clerk would tear out one of
the paper slips until the entire booklet was gone. Usually these early
“frequent flyers” got a discount on their fares. Airlines, led by American
Airlines, also began using carbon paper to speed up the ticket-writing process.