What was your first flight?

[Forg]

It was an Electra SYD-BNE and a B727 BNE-POM

The concept of an Electra and a 727 being on the same trip & not decades apart blows my tiny mind!

 

[ramboflyer]

My first flight was in 1952 when I was 3 months old from Hobart to Sydney. My mother was from Sydney and moved down to Hobart with her parents after the war. Her parents moved back to Sydney and Mum stayed and married Dad.
As I got older, we would semi regularly fly back and forward between Hobart and Sydney. I remember flying TAA and getting a badge every time which I would proudly pin onto my shirt. I think it was called the TAA junior flyers club. It wasn't unusual for the hostesses to take the kids up to the coughpit to have a chat with the pilots. How times have changed!!

 

[Ade]

JetConnect, subsidiary of Jet Airways (9W) - MAA-CCU around late 2010/early 2011, on my first job right out of uni.

 

[Bindibuys]

@drron sorry did not see it at airport. Just landed POM-BNE.

 

[VPS]

As a new trainee tech in BNE with Dept of Civil Aviation in 1968, the entire group of us had never flown in an aircraft. To explain the main nav aids and concepts, we were taken up on a small 6 or 8 seat prop aircraft to see the pretty crude ILS. Truely amazing at the time. About a year later, I wangled my way onto, I think, a DC3, specially fitted out for Nav Aid testing. We did a couple of hours of Touch and Go landings and the excitement soon wore off. In 1975 I did my first international flight. An Aus Union of Students chartered Qantas 747 Sydney to KL. Some processing issue occurred in KL so the whole plane load of us did a sitdown protest in the airport - you couldn’t do that today!!!! Eventually we were on our next leg to Copenhagen on a Maresk chartered flight; tightest economy legroom ever.

My first air adventure was as a 6 year old flying with my 10 yo sister Mount Magnet to Perth WA in an Avro Anson! what an adventure............

Welcome to AFF - two newbies joined today

And @wombalano second comment in 6 years

Enjoy

 

[Hvr]

First commercial flight was in 1978, MEL-LST on a school trip. We flew Ansett. I actually have the group ticket somewhere. The fare for a school group was very cheap.

The FAs were obviously used to handling groups of teenage boys and did it with good humour and charm. Several of the older boys ordered beer but identification checking was very strict and none were delivered.

 

[John in Melbourne]

My first flight was Sydney to Melbourne in 1971. I had a window seat and I remember being amazed at being above the clouds. However, my first "real" flight was Melbourne to London via San Francisco and New York in 1972. And, of course, my parents, brother and friends were there to wave me off. Very exciting! The Qantas 747 was only half full and the crew were great, but I can't remember anything else about the flight. To change my flight dates, all I had to do was walk into a Qantas office in SF then, later, NY to be reticketed FOR NO CHARGE. Very civilised. In London, where I worked for a while, there was a branch of the Commercial Bank of Australia (later to become Westpac), which offered their customers a secure mail address, a reading and writing room, and access to your money, just like at home.

 

[Larko1]

My first flight was on a McDonnell Douglas DC 10 with Garuda Indonesia Airways from Sydney to Bali in September 1978 for a surfing trip . Don't remember anything remarkable about the flights , but had the best surf trip ever!

 

[eric2011]

Flight was a DC3 run by NAC (well before Air NZ) between ROT - PMR in NZ around 1960ish. Low cloud and turbulence all the way

 

[TiredOldFlyer]

My first flight was in a DC3 Essendon to Mildura as an unaccompanied youth. Like others my biggest memory of this flight was how steep it was walking up the aisle to my seat.
First International flight was in the 60's to London and on the return, via Morocco, we were "enhanced" in Rome by Qantas to Alitalia.
Nearly a day's layover and were relocated to Sydney and had another long wait to finally arrive in Melbourne some two days
later than expected. Biggest recollection was that we had departed Morocco with only enough money to buy one malted
milk between us.
Haven't thought much of Qantas ever since.

 

[pks]

First flight was LHR to DEL via Moscow with Aeroflot in 1978, my Dad was taking his English wife and 4 sons to see his parents 22years after he left India! He took out a bank loan for the tickets, not cheap at the time for the equivalent of 5 adult fares even with Aeroflot.

I was 17 and remember our arrival in Delhi as extremely chaotic and we seemed to travel as a group of 12 (6 of us, grandparents, 2 x aunt & uncles) everywhere which just added to the challenges. I loved it all and vowed to go back to travel on my own, which I did 8 years later backpacking on my to Australia.

 

[kelvedon]

Apparently my first flight was on a BOAC Britannia. London to Tripoli, Libya. I was 6 weeks old and my mother had returned to England to have me…. not trusting the local medical services !

But my first memory of flying was in a Convair Metropolitan. We would fly Swissair from London to Zurich or Basel for our annual holidays.

As is often the case, a traumatic event has seared it in my memory. Swissair would give out chocolate and my mum put mine on the seat back ledge and told me I could eat later.

As the plane took off and climbed steeply, I watched in horror as the chocolate gradually slide to the edge of the ledge. Being strapped in by the seatbelt I reached as far forward as I could with my short arms in an attempt to prevent the impending disaster, but I was mortified to see my treat tumble onto the floor and slide under my seat, and probably several rows behind me.

I’m sure the whole plane heard the 5 year old scream like a Banshee !

 

[oz_mark]

My first flight was a Cathay Pacific flight from Perth to Jakarta on a Lockheed L1011.

 

[Warks]

First flight in 1984 at age 18-19. Ansett BNE-SYD. The only reason I flew was that we'd caught the train to Brisbane and I had to go back to uni while the family stayed there but there was the usual train strike so I had to fly. My kids never really believe I was an adult before I flew on a plane. One of the kid's first flights was SYD-LAX on an A380.

 

[wombatpatties]

My first flight was British Airways, from London to Sydney, via Tehran!. Was searched at gunpoint, suspicious luggage as camera film and lipstick was sliced open. Then man-handled back to the tarmac still under gunpoint, then airplane was doused inside with a fumigant. I was newly married, emigrating, and frightened as hell!!! When we landed in Darwin to drop off passengers, it was so hot, and the ground crew were wearing shorts and long socks. I wondered where on earth I had come to. Needless to say, I flew Qantas for a holiday 10 years later in peace.

 

[JohnM]

My first flight was British Airways, from London to Sydney, via Tehran!. Was searched at gunpoint, suspicious luggage as camera film and lipstick was sliced open. Then man-handled back to the tarmac still under gunpoint, then airplane was doused inside with a fumigant. I was newly married, emigrating, and frightened as hell!!! When we landed in Darwin to drop off passengers, it was so hot, and the ground crew were wearing shorts and long socks. I wondered where on earth I had come to. Needless to say, I flew Qantas for a holiday 10 years later in peace.

What year was that?

 

[Maisy33]

1970 from Melbourne to south end on sea. I just have vague memories of stopping in Karachi and the military with machine guns around the airport.

 

[JohnM]

My first flight was on an MMA (MacRobertson Miller Airlines, an intra-WA carrier) DC3 in about March-April 1960. My brother and I, ages 7 and 10, respectively, and normally living in Perth had been living over the summer holidays and for a few weeks into first term of school with our grandmother at Norseman in the WA Goldfields (about mid-way between Kalgoorlie and Esperance), owing to our mother being hospitalised.

Our return to Perth, as unaccompanied minors, was by this flight.

IIRC, the aircraft had come from Kalgoorlie, presumably originating in PER, landed at the airstrip on the salt lake at Norseman, continued on to Esperance and then was due to fly direct to Perth.

At Esperance, we were advised that an impending weather event in PER meant that we couldn't fly there (it must have been the remnants of a tropical cyclone that had moved a long way S), so we returned to KGI and overnighted there.

MMA put us up in the famous Palace Hotel. The crew roused us very early next morning and off we went to PER. I recall solid, low cloud and steady rain when we arrived at PER, but not stormy conditions.

Why fly direct if you can connect?

 

[wombatpatties]

What year was that?

March 1972. Why, were you on that plane?!!!

 

[wombatpatties]

1970 from Melbourne to south end on sea. I just have vague memories of stopping in Karachi and the military with machine guns around the airport.

Wow! people think these days are frightening, we have memories of that 50 years back!