It's almost impossible to imagine a time when air travel was pleasant, much less enjoyable.
Lost baggage, overbooked flights, outdated equipment, hidden fees, and disorganized staffing have fliers at their wits' end; consumer complaints about airline service have risen by 300% from pre-pandemic levels.
Many of these measures had been put in place to improve safety following some rattling accidents in the early days of commercial air travel.
So in 1978, at the urging of the economist and "inflation czar" Alfred Kahn, President Jimmy Carter enacted the Airline Deregulation Act.
He added that "airline service, by any standard, has become unacceptable."