What Airports Looked Like 50 Years Ago
Flying in the 1970s wasn’t all that dissimilar from how we fly today: You checked in for your flight, made your way through security, found your gate, and waited to board. But beyond that familiar routine, airports themselves were very different half a century ago.
The mid-1970s were a transformative time in aviation history. The glamorous “jet age” of the 1950s and ’60s was giving way to the era of mass commercial air travel. As flying became more accessible, airports evolved to accommodate bigger aircraft, more passengers, and new technology.
Photographs from the era help capture the changes: the terminal designs, how passengers checked in for flights, and what entertainment was available at the gate. Here are seven photographs that help illustrate what airports looked like 50 years ago.
San Francisco International Airport (1973)
SFO introduced its first passenger security checkpoints in January 1973, bringing metal detectors and luggage inspections to an airport where passengers had previously faced little screening. The new system was part of a broader response to the hijacking epidemic of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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Narita Airport, Japan (1978)
Opened in 1978, Narita Airport was built in an era when modernism was on designers’ minds. Airport interiors leaned into the aesthetic with geometric shapes, modular furniture, and pops of color, all of which show up in this passenger waiting area.
Dallas Fort Worth Airport (1974)
Dallas Fort Worth Airport opened in 1974 and was a vision of the modern airport: It was the biggest in the world at the time, built around four futuristic-looking semicircular terminals. As this photo shows, navigating the new complex could take some getting used to.
LaGuardia Airport (1972)
Before smartphones made passing time at the airport much easier, passengers could drop a coin into a television built right into their lounge chair. These coin-operated TV seats were a familiar sight in airports in the 1970s, when 10 cents could buy you 10 minutes of entertainment, or for 25 cents, you could pass a whole half hour.
LaGuardia Airport (1972)
Today, choosing your seat is almost an automatic part of booking a flight, but it once meant lining up at a counter like this one at LaGuardia, where an airline employee would help assign your seat. This gradually shifted toward advance seat selection later in the decade as fare levels expanded.
Heathrow Airport (1975)
Before modern digital megascreens or text notifications, travelers looked to mechanical split-flap boards such as this one for flight information. Individual letters and numbers flipped into place with a distinctive sound to display updates such as flight cancellations — which this 1975 board proves are not just a modern problem.
Heathrow Airport (1971)
In 1971, passengers boarded the British Overseas Airways Corporation’s first commercial jumbo jet flight from London’s Heathrow to New York by walking directly across the tarmac to the aircraft — something that is now far less common at major airports, where jet bridges are the norm.
