01x16 - Air Travel

[bunniefuu]

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Have you ever

wondered how many people

are in the sky right now?

- Um.

- Probably more than I imagine.

- Are we including

trapeze artists

and people launched

from catapults?

- 50,000.

- Half a million.

- A million people.

- [Narrator] On any given

day, you're likely to find

about 1.2 million

people in the air.

- Now, that is a

lot of airplanes.

- Okay, that's a lot

of people (laughs).

- [Narrator] 2019

Was the busiest year

in the history of air travel.

- If you've ever seen

any of the flight charts

that show all the planes in

the air at the same time,

there's thousands and thousands.

- [Narrator] How did we go

from one brave passenger?

- It's hard to

understand how insane

you would have to

be (man screams)

to go on the first scheduled

commercial airline flight.

- [Narrator] To 40

million annual flights.

- [Flight Attendant] Here we go.

It's almost time to fly.

- [Narrator] It

takes wanderlust.

- I don't think there

are any human beings

who haven't dreamt of flying.

- [Narrator] Innovation.

- The jet engine

changes the whole game.

- [Narrator] Risque marketing.

- Each airline was kind of

trying to outcompete each other

with these really

beautiful stewardesses.

- The idea was that air

travel is the fulfillment

of a fantasy, and a part

of that fantasy was sex.

- [Narrator] And the

rise of coach class.

- The fact you only get

30 inches of leg room.

- It's a lot more democratic.

- [Narrator] This is

a story of firsts,

of millions, of billions.

- The 2010 Iceland

volcano expl*si*n

cost airlines $1.7 billion.

- [Narrator] And the

lucky number seven.

This is air travel.

- Please fasten your seatbelt.

- [Narrator] Buckle up.

(upbeat music)

(plane engine roaring)

- Air travel has connected

people, culture, societies,

has allowed people to

travel quicker, faster,

more efficiently than we've

ever would've expected.

Air travel has

revolutionized everything.

- We need numbers to help

us imagine air travel.

What is the volume of luggage

getting moved every day?

What is the longest flight?

How many people are getting

onto an airplane every day?

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] To grasp

the true scope and reach

of air travel today,

look no further

than Hartsfield-Jackson

Atlanta International Airport.

- Atlanta is the world's

busiest passenger airport.

- [Narrator] More than

110 million passengers

come through its

doors every year.

- There's always a running

joke that no matter

where you are

traveling in the world,

that if there's a

layover, it's Atlanta.

- [Narrator] But ATL

would never have taken off

without an obscure

risk-taking druggist

and the magic of number nine.

(upbeat music)

In 1888, Atlanta

pharmacist Asa Candler

buys the secret recipe

to a new soft drink

with nine mysterious

ingredients.

He successfully markets

the syrupy tonic

and founds the

Cola-Cola Company.

Within two decades, it's

America's favorite soda.

- [Woman] Yum.

- [Narrator] But Asa's got

a thirst for a new venture.

With the profits

of his soda empire,

he gambles $77,674, or two

million in today's money,

on 287 acres of marshland.

- [Man] It's a fixer-upper.

- [Narrator] Then drains

the whole thing dry.

- In 1909, Asa Candler opens

up a raceway in Atlanta.

- [Narrator] Thousands flock

to see car races and air shows.

But after two seasons,

the novelty wears off.

- The raceway in Atlanta

is way ahead of its time

because the car is

just being introduced

to modern America and

middle-class America.

- [Narrator] The

speedway is a flop.

Asa's big idea is as

flat as stale soda pop.

The track sits

abandoned till 1919

when Asa lets pilots use

it as a landing strip.

A few years later, the city

officially takes it over.

- If Asa Candler could see

what happened to his vision,

his mind would explode.

(plane engine roars)

So, the land is now home to

Atlanta Hartsfield Airport.

It's a tiny portion of what

is the sprawling system

of runways and taxiways.

- [Narrator] In less than a

century, Asa's original airfield

multiplied by 16 to now

cover 7.3 square miles.

(upbeat music)

- The Atlanta airport

is absolutely huge.

Every time I've

flown through it,

my connection is in

a different terminal

on the other side

of the airport,

and you have to ride a tram

to get from one

place to the other.

- [Narrator] Hartsfield-Jackson

airport covers 4,700 acres,

and an average of

2,700 planes take off

and land here every single day.

(upbeat music)

- The airport itself

is an experience.

I mean, literally, you can do

everything at the terminal.

- It's like a fully-formed

city in itself.

I mean, you've got restaurants,

hotels, transportation hubs.

- They have little churches.

They have their

own police force.

They have public

transit that moves you

from one end to the other.

And it's all behind

a security wall.

- [Narrator] 63,000

people are needed

to run Atlanta's airport,

making it the number one

employer in the state.

(film reel clicking)

(whimsical music)

All airports owe a debt to

the pioneers of aviation,

but you'd be surprised

to discover some

aren't the usual suspects

from our textbooks.

- Aviation always starts with

the Wright brothers in 1903,

but people were

trying, experimenting,

learning to fly

long before that.

- [Narrator] From Leonard

da Vinci's 500 visions

of flying machines, to

the study of aerodynamics

by mathematicians like

Huygens or Newton.

- [Man] Come on, come on.

- [Narrator] Humans have

been attempting flight

for centuries.

- [Man] Oh, no.

- [Man] If it works,

it ain't stupid.

- I know nothing

of aerodynamics.

I don't know how

somebody figured it

out in the first place.

- The wheels come up and then

it's autopilot, isn't it?

- I should know

this as an engineer.

Air that flows

faster has less lift

than air that flows slower,

so the design of the wing

causes air to flow

over the wing faster

and under the wing slower,

and that's what

gives the plane lift.

- You're floating.

- The wings don't

move like a bird.

- It might just be magic.

- There's a reason why it

took human beings so long

to figure out how to fly.

You have to have

two characteristics.

One is you have

to be very logical

and rigorous in your

engineering designs.

At the same time, you have

to be incredibly reckless.

You have to be a

lunatic to put yourself

in one of these

flimsy contraptions.

- [Man] Aw, just like Icarus.

- The very idea of flight, it

was fascinating to everybody,

but most people would

say it can't be done.

Those who were prepared

to give it a try

couldn't wait to

get into the air.

- [Narrator] We're used to

cruising at 30,000 feet.

But it's the much lower

altitude of 50 feet

that makes commercial

aviation history.

Taking us on that seminal

ride is a motley duo

you've probably never heard of.

- Let's head to the beach.

- [Narrator] New

Year's Day, 1914,

3,000 people gather on a beach

in St. Petersburg, Florida.

- Everyone there, I

mean, regardless whether

they were hungover or

sober, had to be aware

that they're either gonna

witness the greatest thing ever,

or one of the biggest

tragedies ever.

- [Narrator] They've come to

see the Birdman, Tony Jannus.

A 24-year-old

playboy and showman,

he's promised to wow the crowds,

flying a Benoist XIV

across the bay to Tampa.

(bright music)

- Well, a Benoist airplane is

a boat with a set of wings,

and then a propeller driven by

an early internal

combustion engine,

and a tail which enabled you

to keep the whole

thing stabilized.

- [Narrator] The model XIV

was one of 17 flying machines

built by aircraft

parts manufacturer

and designer, Thomas Benoist.

- This Benoist fellow liked

to brag about how he used

the best materials and he

just used the best math.

It was all bluster, I mean,

these people did not know

what they were doing.

- [Narrator] St. Petersburg

Mayor Abraham C. Pheil

shells out $400 for

the only seat on board

and the bragging rights

to being the very first

paying airplane

passenger in the world.

- It's hard to understand how

insane you would have to be

to go on the first scheduled

commercial airline flight.

It was an experimental,

almost a toy,

I would say, this flying boat.

(bright music)

- An airboat?

- Oh, it's a sea plane.

- That doesn't look

particularly safe.

(laughs) No, thank you.

- I would definitely fly in

this thing just to try it.

- [Man] Watch and learn, mortal.

- [Narrator] After takeoff,

the Benoist reaches

a maximum cruising

altitude of 50 feet,

but soon, the engine sputters

and the boat plane

splashes down.

Not about to

disappoint the crowd,

Tony tinkers with the engine

and lifts off once more.

- It goes faster and faster

and faster, and like the,

the chickly chicken chickly

of the engine, and, you know,

finally it's in the air and,

you know, there's birds,

you know, whipping past, and

22 minutes of flight time,

you're all the way

across the bay.

- Once that airboat takes

its first paying passenger,

that's really the catalyst

for commercial airfare.

- [Narrator] The flight

service runs twice a day,

six days a week.

In four months, it takes

1,200 paying passengers

across Tampa Bay.

- Commercial aviation

was getting started,

but the machines were not

very powerful, not very fast,

and you couldn't

carry much weight.

(mischievous music)

- [Narrator] Early planes

made of wood and fabric

are used mainly for

transporting mail.

But when military aircraft

from the First World w*r

repurposed, commercial

flight gets a big boost.

- After this very sort

of experimental era,

we moved into the 30s.

By then, airplanes

were getting quite

a lot bigger and a lot

more sophisticated.

- So, in the 1930s,

there's a major leap

in aircraft technology.

Aircraft designers

have at their disposal

considerably better

internal combustion engines.

- [Narrator] Metal airframes

combined with power engines

enable planes to

fly faster, farther,

and through different climates.

- As the engines get

better and better,

you have aircraft

that really leapfrog

in their performance

capabilities.

- [Narrator] The

industry takes off.

In 1930, 6,000 Americans

travel by plane.

Four years later, that

number multiplies by 75

to reach 450,000 passengers.

Yet, despite the

technological advancements,

air travel is

strictly for the 1%.

- Ordinary people

couldn't hope to buy

an airline ticket to anywhere,

not short haul, and

certainly not long haul.

- [Narrator] A

coast-to-coast return flight

in depression-era America

would cost the equivalent

of $4,270 today.

And we're not talking flying

in first-class

conditions either.

- The airplane was

incredibly noisy

and there was no pressurization.

And by the time

you landed there,

the drumming sound in your ears

didn't stop for a

week after that.

- [Narrator] For the super rich,

there was another more

comfortable option

to cruise the skies.

- In the 1930s, the really

established and reliable,

and frankly, luxurious

way to do air travel

was by Zeppelin.

You had plenty of space.

You didn't have this crazy

vibrations and noise.

- [Narrator] Replicating

the exclusive

ocean liner experience,

a one-way ticket across

the Atlantic on an airship,

sets you back $400, or

more than $7,000 today.

- It was faster than

surface ships could go.

It's very stable.

- [Narrator] An airship

takes three to five days

to float from Europe

to the United States.

- And that seemed

like a much better bet

for the future of air travel.

- [Narrator] Until a catastrophe

spells the end of

airship travel.

(water splashing)

- [Man] Oh, the humanity

and all the (indistinct)

feeding around here.

I can't talk, ladies

and gentlemen.

- [Narrator] 35 Of 97 people

aboard the Hindenburg perish

when the Zeppelin catches fire

attempting to land in May 1937.

- It was such a

tragic, tragic event

and was so covered in the news

that we still associate the

word Hindenburg with disasters.

- [Narrator] Planes

are decidedly the

future of air travel.

And once the revolutionary

method of propulsion

comes on the scene,

there's no turning back.

(upbeat music)

- When you look at the

history of aviation,

there's before the jet engine

and after the jet engine.

(engine roars)

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Jet

engine airplanes

are developed in the

30s and early 40s.

They first take to the

skies in World w*r II.

(upbeat music)

- Instead of using

blades to push the air,

they ingest the

air at the front,

drive it through sets

of whirling thin blades,

heat it up by injecting

and burning fuel,

and then propel it out the back,

so driving the plane

forward on pure thrust.

- [Narrator] Jets fly

faster, farther, higher,

and more efficiently than all

airplanes previously built.

After the w*r, a little-known

military aircraft manufacturer

called Boeing sees just

how commercial air travel

and company profits could

soar to new heights.

To make it happen, they

bet on number seven.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Nearing completion

in the Boeing planet, Seattle,

America's first jet transport

is a unit of glistening beauty.

- Boeing, thanks to working

on these jet-powered bombers,

had experience working

with these really

technologically

sophisticated engines

that were reliable and powerful.

- [Narrator] Boeing risks

a quarter of its net worth

on the 100 plus passenger jet.

That's a major leap

from a flying boat

with one traveler on board.

- [Narrator] Representing

$15 million investment,

the jet giant is 128 feet long

with a wing spread of 130 feet.

- [Narrator] The pressure

is on to sell the new fleet.

- The marketing

department at Boeing

started to develop an idea.

- [Narrator] Boeing's

divisions are classified

by blocks of 100, so the

new jet will be model 700,

but there's nothing

catchy about that name,

so the mad men in marketing

gamble on another seven.

(plane engine whirring)

- We're taking you aboard

the Boeing jet

Stratoliner, the 707,

to give you a preview

of airliner travel

of the future.

- [Narrator] The

move will give rise

to one of the most

successful brands in history,

and turn out to be

Boeing's lucky number.

- The future is bright,

and a real epitome

of that brightness

is the Boeing 707,

this wonderful machine that

is gonna transform everything.

- [Narrator] But it's

still early days.

Boeing doesn't know yet

how lucky number seven

will be for company fortunes.

Right now, it needs

an entire industry

to buy into its dream.

(belt swooshing)

(engine roaring)

It happens to be August 7th

and somebody's lucky day.

Tex Johnston climbs into the

prototype for the Boeing 707.

Once a barnstormer, now

Boeing ship test pilot,

Tex is known for a love

of all things cowboy.

(mid-tempo music)

- He had the great mustache

and the nerves of steel,

ice water in his

veins, demeanor.

And he, you know, was

given this really sturdy,

straight-flying,

reliable aircraft.

- [Narrator] Today's

mission is a no-nonsense fly

over Lake Washington.

The goal is to impress

the air industry execs

aboard Boeing President

Bill Allen's yacht.

(upbeat music)

250,000 onlookers are

also in attendance,

but they've come for

the speedboat races.

- Only Tex is planning

to upstage the spectacle

on the water with

his number one move.

- He just could not

resist the opportunity

to show the people on the

ground what this thing could do.

- [Narrator] Powering

up to 490 miles an hour,

Tex throws the 280,000-pound

passenger plane

into a barrel roll.

- [Man] He's a mad man.

- [Man] I like it.

- He takes the plane upside

down and everyone was shocked.

- He wasn't

authorized to do that.

It was not part of

the flight plan.

He just knew he could do it,

so he did it.

- [Tex] Yeehah!

- How confident was Tex Johnston

to do a barrel roll

in front of his boss?

What better way to sell a plane

than to make it stand

out from other planes?

- [Narrator] Boeing 707,

powered by Pratt and

Whitney jet engines,

and operated by Pan

American World Airways.

Its destination, Paris.

- [Narrator] Pan

Am orders 20 707s.

TWA, Qantas and other

airlines quickly follow suit.

- The Boeing 707 really

did kick off the jet age.

- [Narrator] Carrying

over 100 passengers

at up to 600 miles per hour,

the 707 cuts trans-Atlantic

flight times in half.

- So now we could go anywhere.

We could literally

go around the world

in roughly 23 or 24 hours.

- All of a sudden,

the world opens up.

(tires screeching)

- [Narrator] Historians of

aviation jokingly call this

the era of the Mach

1 movie theater

and the supersonic

whisky's hour.

- The 50s and 60s were really

the golden age of travel.

- There's plenty of leg

room, plenty of comfort,

everyone's relaxed.

It just seems like

the equivalent

of first-class traveling today.

- You had to be

able to afford it.

Air travel in the 50s,

adjusted for inflation,

was five times what it is today.

(engine roars)

- [Narrator] Today,

you'd pay about $800

for a round trip ticket

from New York to Paris.

Adjusted for inflation,

back in the 50s,

you'd be shelling out some

$4,000 for the same flight.

- It was expensive

enough that 64%

of airline passengers

were repeat passengers.

- Good afternoon,

welcome aboard.

- Thanks very much.

- You're welcome.

- [Narrator] So airlines

looked for creative ways

to lure the 64%

with deep pockets.

- Glamor was what

was going to sell it.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] No carrier

pulled off luxury in the skies

better than Pan American.

- The genius of Pan

Am was to create

a powerful association

with freedom

and glamor and exoticism.

- [Man] When you fly out

into the world with Pan Am,

you're not going with an airline

(indistinct) country best

then visits the rest.

- Pan Am had a really

charismatic leader,

Juan Trippe, who had

endless imagination.

He was a good businessman,

but he was a dreamer, too.

- [Narrator] A

former naval aviator,

Juan Trippe launches

Pan Am in 1927.

Laser-focused on the number one,

he takes only three

years to turn Pan Am

into the world's

biggest airline.

- Pan Am was an

airline of firsts,

both cultural and technical.

It was the first to

serve food in the air,

and it was the first to offer

trans-Atlantic

passenger service.

It was the first airline to

bring the Beatles to the US.

- Pan Am as a brand pervaded

culture, both high and low.

- [Narrator] Pan Am

was the first carrier

to sell all-expense air tours

and create the tourist class

on international flights.

To lure passengers of

every income level,

all the air carriers lean

heavily on their staff.

(upbeat music)

- Each airline was kind of

trying to outcompete each other

with these really

beautiful, glamorous,

and at some point in time as

the sexual revolution happened,

overtly sexy stewardesses.

- [Narrator] Here's

what it takes

to be a stewardess in the 1960s.

Be at least 20 years old,

but not older than 27;

a height somewhere

between 5-foot-two,

but not above 5-foot-nine;

weigh less than 140 pounds;

must retire by age 32,

be unmarried and

definitely not pregnant.

- The idea was that air travel

is the fulfillment of a fantasy.

And a part of that

fantasy was sex.

(mellow music)

- Braniff Airlines had something

they called the AirStrip.

The stewardess would

begin the flight

wearing a jacket and a dress.

And with every meal

course that she served,

she took off one layer of

clothing until at the end,

she was wearing a leotard

with a sheer overlay.

- [Man] After dinner

on those long flights,

she'll slip into something

a little more comfortable.

- This looks like

you're hiring an escort.

- It's like mad man.

Oh, she's stripping more?

We get it, you're hot.

She took out her

skirt (chuckles).

- That told me nothing

about being on a plane.

- They don't make flight

attendants like that anymore.

They're actually

overworked and underpaid.

- [Narrator] There's no

mention of flying in the ad,

and something like this

would never work today.

But back in the 60s,

the innuendo-laden

campaign is a huge success.

Within a year,

business is up 50%.

(mellow music)

- And that kind of

wink and nod sexism

became much more

overt over the course

of the late 60s and early 70s,

culminating in the National

Airlines Fly Me campaign.

- [Woman] Everything

you've heard about us

Miami girls is true.

We're always on the move.

I'm Judy and I was born to fly.

- [Narrator] In 1972,

National Airlines

spends $ 9.5 million

marketing the bodies

of stewardesses, rather

than the flights.

- It was unbelievably sexist.

Their jobs were really dependent

on their willingness to

appear as sex objects.

- [Narrator] The highly

chauvinistic strategy works.

Ticket sales increased

23% in just one year.

That's more than double

the industry average.

- I'm Judy and I

was born to fly.

Fly me.

- [Announcer] Fly Judy.

Fly National.

- Sexism is not limited to land.

They were objectified

the same way in the air

as women were treated

in the workplace.

- [Narrator] And yet being a

stewardess was a coveted job.

It was the number

one career choice

among female high

school seniors in 1968.

- It's easy from the

vantage point of today

to forget just how

constrained choices were

for many American women

in the 50s and 60s.

- There's two ways you

could leave your small town.

You could join the military

or if you're a woman,

you could become a stewardess.

So not only can you

leave, but you can travel

to different states and

different countries.

- [Narrator] You might

think a pretty face

is what gets you

the job in the 60s,

but consider this.

In 1968, 266,000 women applied

for just 12,000

stewardess positions.

With one in 22 odds,

wow was a girl to stand

out from the crowd?

- Lynne Totten was from

small town in New York state.

She was the first woman in

her family to go to college.

She was the student

body president.

She was incredibly, you

know, bright and promising.

- [Narrator] Lynne is passionate

about her science studies,

and the events

gripping her country.

- She was engaged in the

social movements of the day,

and she wanted to see

these different places

that she'd read the

headlines about.

So when she graduated,

she appalled her parents

by saying that

she wanted to work

as a stewardess after college.

They thought that she

would be a teacher,

or work in a biology lab, or

get married and have a family.

- [Narrator] But

Lynne is unstoppable.

She heads to New York

City and makes a bee line

for the 59-storey standout

in the Big Apple skyline.

(mid-tempo music)

- The Pan Am building,

which casts a huge shadow,

she walks through the

lobby, up the stairs

to the conference

room where there were

all of these really

beautiful women in rose.

And they were incredibly

intimidating to her.

- There was a lot

of competition.

They were also expected to be

not only attractive physically,

but to be good

conversationalists.

- [Narrator]

Lynne's heart sinks.

For every hundred applicants,

no more than five get the job.

- She almost turned right

back around and walked out.

But she went to her interview

where she talked to a man,

very frankly, about what

she might be looking to do.

- [Narrator] Lynne is clear.

She's not interested in

finding a rich husband

or shopping in exotic locales.

After the interview,

Lynne is the only applicant

to be offered the job.

Her smarts, calm, and honesty

are what give her the edge.

- For all of the glamor that

Pan Am really projected,

what it really needed was

women who would be able

to handle such a huge

variety of situations.

- [Narrator] In the 1960s,

six to 8% of US college

graduates were women.

Yet 10% of Pan Am stewardesses

had gone to graduate school.

- Hi.

(plane engine roaring)

- But the tenants don't

get enough credit.

- Yes, they're serving us our

wine, which is very important,

but they're also

help keeping us safe.

- I mean, they should

honestly give you

an electrified (indistinct)

because you are kind of

hurt and (indistinct).

- Yeah, they should have some

like self-defense training.

You know, like people are

so rude to fight attendants.

- They are heroes.

They make sure that you live.

- United Flight

837 to Los Angeles.

The flight is not

ready for boarding.

Passengers only beyond the

(indistinct) room, please.

(bright music)

- [Narrator] In the late 60s,

all the carriers were

looking for sharp candidates,

like Lynne Totten,

to handle the increase

in passenger numbers.

- Aviation was

getting more efficient

and society was

becoming more prosperous

while disposable

incomes were going up.

So, they started

packing the seats.

- [Narrator] In 1970,

there were 383 million

air passenger

journeys worldwide.

To meet increasing demand,

Boeing introduces its

most iconic plane ever.

(mellow music)

- [Narrator] The mostest

of everything describes

the new giant of

commercial aviation,

the jetliner 747.

Contrasted with great

conventional aircraft,

the 747 will carry

490 passengers.

- [Man] Whoa.

- We see a lot of very big

airplanes around nowadays,

but at that time, the

leap from the 707,

about 150 passengers,

up to an aircraft

which could have held

400 to 500 passengers,

that was a massive leap.

- [Narrator] The 747

enters service in 1970

to great acclaim.

It's the first (indistinct)

commercial airliner,

the first to feature

stairs to an upper deck,

and the first jet

with overhead bins.

- With 747, Boeing hit a

grand slam home run again.

- [Narrator] The

legendary Boeing 747

is made of six million parts,

contains 140 miles of

wire, or the distance

between Philadelphia

and Washington, DC.

And with a wingspan of 195 feet,

the 747 is 35 feet wider

than a football field.

(mellow music)

- First of all, it's huge.

And it has a distinctive look.

It is unmistakable because

of this bulge on top.

You see a 747 from any distance

and you know exactly what it is.

- [Narrator] Dubbed

the queen of the skies

and the plane that

shrank the world,

the 747 flies 4,620 nautical

miles on a single tank of gas

and brings travelers to the

far corners of the planet.

- Flying became a bit more

affordable for ordinary people,

so larger numbers flew.

- [Narrator] With many more

people taking to the skies,

aircraft safety becomes

an increasing concern.

(airplane whirring)

- [Steward] I'm gonna ask

you to fasten your seatbelts.

- I don't have a fear of flying.

- I used to have

a fear of flying,

but now I'm sort

of jaded about it.

- I do have a fear of heights

and I have a fear

of outer space,

so it's weird that

plane flying is fine.

- Obviously during turbulence,

like when you do those

like vertical drops,

you definitely get the like

butterflies in your stomach.

- Oh, I hate flying,

probably 'cause

I have no control

over the situation.

You are literally in a

metal tube in the sky.

(plane engine roars)

- [Narrator] Aerophobia is

the most commonly held fear

in the United States.

- So many people are so uneasy

about what is mathematically

such a ridiculously safe

form of transportation.

One statistic has it

that 40% of air travelers

experience some kind

of anxiety or unease.

Obviously, that kind of

instinctual risk assessment

is not rational,

but the fact that so

many people experience it

just signals how

deep-seated it is.

(plane engine roars)

- [Narrator] If you

have a fear of flying,

falling from 10,000 feet

might be your worst nightmare,

but there can be far greater

dangers at ground level.

Christmas Eve, 1971,

17-year-old Juliane

Koepcke is flying

over the Peruvian Amazon

on board LANSA Flight 508.

40 minutes in and the turbo

prop flies into a thunderstorm.

The plane shakes violently.

Juliane watches helplessly as

lightning strikes the wing.

(lightning sizzles)

- Thunderstorms have violent

updrafts and downdrafts.

It can literally rip

an airliner to pieces.

- [Narrator] The

plane breaks apart.

Suddenly, the buckled-in teen

is falling from 10,000 feet

toward the jungle canopy below.

She blacks out before impact.

- When her plane

started to go down,

she was still

trapped in her seat

and had the seats on

either side of her empty,

which may have helped cushion

the fall, and she survived.

- [Narrator] Juliane wakes

up with broken bones,

a concussion, and

deep lacerations.

- And she then had to spend

11 days searching for safety.

- [Narrator] Picking her

way through the jungle,

Juliane dodges deadly snakes,

fends off swarms of insects,

and sidesteps hungry caimans.

- She had a broken collarbone,

was attacked by

parasites and maggots.

She eventually found her

way to a loggers encampment

and they were able to

get her to a hospital.

- [Narrator] Today,

airplanes are equipped

with weather radars, so pilots

can fly around storm systems.

- It's hard to really overstate

how safe air travel is.

- Back in the 1980s, your

chance of being on an airplane,

which had an accident that

k*lled even one person on board,

would've been about one in

one and a half a million.

Now, we're in a different

league altogether.

Safety has gotten better

by a multiple of about six.

(plane engine roars)

- [Narrator] The odds of

dying in an aircraft accident

on any airline are

one in 11 million.

The odds of getting hit by

lightning are one in 500,000.

- [Man] Huh, the numbers lie.

- [Narrator] It would take

one person 10,000 years

of daily flights before a

fatal crash would occur.

- So a flight every

day for 10,000 years,

how crazy is that?

- You have a bigger chance

than getting hit by lightning

than dying in a plane

crash, like, that's amazing.

- It shows you how

safe planes are.

- Well, now I don't wanna

go outside anymore, thanks.

(laughs) I'm just gonna stay

in a plane all the time.

- It's the technology

which has made

the biggest single difference.

Airplanes now, they're not just

technologically

beautifully engineered,

but they're smart.

There are computers

galore on board,

monitoring the equipment,

much better than people can.

- [Narrator] After deregulation

of the industry in 1978,

ticket prices fall and

air travel explodes.

New carriers spring up

through the 80s and 90s

to cater to the demand.

- They could charge

less, price competition.

You could start

thinking about things

like low-cost carriers,

things like People Express,

Southwest airlines.

- [Narrator] As budget

airlines trade comfort

for affordability,

air travel finally

becomes democratic.

From 1980 to 1989,

the number of

passengers worldwide

increases by 368 million.

- Flying is absolutely virgin

for everybody since then.

However, the actual experience

has gone somewhat downhill.

- The fact you only get

30 inches of leg room

obviously is disheartening.

- [Narrator] If that's

just too tight a squeeze,

there's always first class,

provided you can afford it.

- One of the most expensive

airline tickets right now

is Lufthansa from New York to

Hong Kong and it's $43,000,

which is also the starting

salary of many teachers

in the United States of America.

(indistinct) is

responsibility. ♪

- [Narrator] But back

in the 80s and 90s,

there was something

even more glamorous

than flying first-class.

(indistinct chattering)

It was riding on

board a rare bird

that harnessed the

power of seven,

to become the most exclusive

super jet in the skies.

- Some people would

say the Concorde

is the most beautiful

and impressive aircraft

that ever flew.

And I think those

people would be right.

(crowd cheering)

So the British and

the French, you know,

faced with this juggernaut

that Boeing was becoming,

thought, "How can we steal

a march in the Americans?

While the Americans

are building bigger,

we're gonna build faster."

- You have an airplane here,

which didn't just beat

the speed of sound;

it more than doubled it.

- [Narrator] Cruising

the skies at Mack 2,

twice the speed of sound,

the ultimate aircraft,

many believe in

commercial jet travel.

- [Narrator] At a

cost of $1.8 billion,

the Concorde program

was behind schedule

and grossly over-budget.

But when the super jet finally

enters commercial service

in 1976, the result was

utterly spectacular.

- When you push those

throttles forward,

the acceleration in

the small of your back

is like nothing else

that you can get

on any other civil airline.

- Oh, here we go.

You can really feel much

of the power in your back.

Concorde take off

at twice the speed

of a normal aircraft,

250 miles per hour.

It is amazing, my

ears are popping.

(plane engine whirring)

- [Narrator] Concorde

breaks the sound barrier

at 770 miles an hour.

Its cruising speed is

1,350 miles per hour,

Mach 2, or 23 miles per minute.

And it made its fastest

trans-Atlantic crossing

in two hours, 52 minutes

and 59 seconds in 1996.

- You're flying much higher

than normal commercial aviation.

You could see the

curvature of the Earth

and the sky was dark overhead,

almost like you were

traveling in space.

- [Narrator] Cruising

at 60,000 feet,

Concorde cuts air travel

time by more than half.

- Everybody in there was

somebody famous or rich.

- [Narrator] In the late 1990s,

a return ticket to fly

in this rarefied air

sets you back $12,000

or $18,000 today.

Only the creme de

la creme of pilots

are permitted to fly this bird.

- It had to be flown different.

It had a thousand

little dials everywhere.

It took an incredibly competent

and well-trained crew to fly.

- [Narrator] Piloting the super

jet was a sought-after gig,

but the failure rate among

captain candidates was 50%.

- Flying Concorde was

not an easy thing to do.

You've got a whole load of

passengers down the back

who don't want any shocks,

and they don't want you to

spill their gin and tonic.

- [Narrator] For 27

years, the supersonic jet

was the coolest, fastest,

and most exclusive commercial

aircraft in the skies.

- But those things have cost.

Notably, it made a sonic boom,

so it created this giant

earth-shattering rumble

as it passed overhead.

And it also burned

tremendous amounts of fuel.

- Concorde was not good

for the environment.

Maybe in the future,

we'll see a return

to this kind of

hyper-quick travel,

if there's a way to do it,

where it's fuel-efficient.

- [Narrator] After Concorde

is retired in 2003,

supersonic air travel

becomes a thing of the past.

Or maybe not.

(indistinct chattering)

In 2021, United Airlines

announces the purchase

of 15 supersonic passenger

planes from a Colorado startup.

Boom Supersonic

is more than happy

to show off their

fancy new jet online.

- I would love to see

travel expediated,

so those 23-hour flights

are now five or six hours.

Those six-hour flights are

now are 30, 40 minutes.

- Talking about a supersonic

business jet technologically,

it would be possible.

A supersonic airliner

as big as Concorde

or bigger than Concorde, all

the technological challenges,

they're still there

to be overcome.

- You can't get around with it.

If you're gonna go faster

than the speed of sound,

you're gonna make a boom.

- So you can't fly it

over populated areas.

- [Narrator] A

jackhammer creates

about 100 decibels of noise.

Human ear drums rupture

at 150 decibels.

(man screams)

A sonic boom exceeds

200 decibels.

It's enough power

to k*ll a person.

(man groans)

(mid-tempo music)

- If you wanna go really fast,

you have to burn a lot of fuel.

And if you're

building your aircraft

around burning tremendous

amounts of fossil fuel,

that's a problem.

- I'm not investing my money

in a supersonic

project at the moment.

I am not.

(mid-tempo music)

- [Narrator] The

business of aviation

is not for the risk-averse.

You need more than lucky

numbers to stay in this game.

- It's a volatile business.

It takes nerves of

steel to run an airline.

- [Narrator] Preparing

for the unpredictable

comes with the territory.

Yet no airline could

have quite foreseen

a sleeping giant beneath

a glacier in Iceland.

After a 177-year long nap

and some 300

earthquakes, he wakes up.

- [Man] From 10 miles

away, it's awe-inspiring.

From two miles,

it's intimidating.

From just a few hundred

yards, it's frightening.

- [Narrator] Soon, his

tongue-twister name

is on everybody's lips.

Well, sort of.

- Eyjafjallajokull.

- Eyjafjallajokull.

- Eyjafjallajokulla.

- What?

- Eyjafjallajokull.

- [Reporter] The latest

images of the volcano

in Eyjafjallajokull.

- An easy name to say.

Eyjafjallajokull.

- It was kind of

an obscure volcano.

It wasn't particularly

huge or anything,

but the peculiarities of the

geology or what have you,

this thing sent

tiny shards of glass

high up into the stratosphere.

- [Narrator] On

April 14th, 2010,

Eyjafjallajokull, nailed it,

unleashes a plume

of volcanic ash

that rises 6.2

miles into the sky.

We're talking 12 of the

tallest buildings in the world,

stacked atop one another.

- At that time, the jet stream

was blowing right over Iceland,

and it was carrying all

of these tiny shards

of floating glass over Europe,

over the entirety of

Western Europe and beyond.

- [Narrator] The debris

drifts and spreads

across 2.7 million square miles,

some 10 times the size of Texas.

- Old pilots know that volcanic

ash in the air is dangerous,

particularly for jet engines.

It's very abrasive.

- It is like

sandblasting your engine,

and turbines, they are

incredibly reliable.

They are marvels, but they

cannot be screwed with.

If you throw volcanic

dust into it,

you will destroy a

multi-million dollar engine

in a heartbeat.

- [Narrator] For seven

days, planes across Europe

sit idle on the tarmac.

10 million grounded passengers

shake their fists

at mother nature.

- The 2010 Iceland

volcano expl*si*n

cost airlines $1.7 billion.

(cash register tinkling)

- [Narrator] Among

those grounded

was a familiar face

to United Airlines.

- It's not about

the places I go.

It's about the people I meet.

- [Narrator] American Tom Stuker

is the world's

most frequent flyer

with 21 million miles flown.

That's like going around

the equator 844 times.

Tom pays for all his trips,

including the 350 he's

made to Australia,

and then donates his

frequent flyer points.

- Air travel covers

such long distances

it's fairly sensitive

to changes in weather,

or even local events

like disease outbreaks

or political coups.

- [Narrator] Early in 2020,

Tom and the entire industry

are blindsided again,

this time, an invisible

airborne villain

100 nanometers in

diameters, to blame.

(electronic swooshing)

(ominous music)

- COVID 19, this pandemic

has really hit aviation hard.

(ominous music)

I think there are

no other industries

that have been hit harder.

- People weren't

allowed to travel.

So all the industries

and all the jobs

associated with the airline

industry are being affected.

- At its worst stage,

about 90% of aviation

stopped, of civil aviation.

- [Narrator] As

COVID 19 spreads,

passenger journeys drop

from 4.5 billion in 2019

to 1.8 billion in 2020.

That's a $370 billion

loss for the airlines,

and another $115 billion

hit to the airports.

(taut music)

- Things have

happen all the time

that can cause tremendous loss

and there's nothing

they can do about it.

But ultimately, air travel

will continue as it has,

which is to grow

and grow and grow.

- I don't have any doubt

that people will recover

their wanderlust and their

wish to travel by air

once the pandemic is under

control or even behind us.

- [Narrator] No stranger

to the ups and downs

of the business, Boeing

predicts a full recovery

within two and a half years.

- Domestic aviation in the USA

is rebounding

surprisingly quickly.

(bright music)

- [Narrator] On June 27th, 2021,

2,167,380 passengers

passed through US airports.

It's the busiest

day since air travel

came to a screeching

halt in March of 2020.

- Air travel connects countries.

It connects citizens.

- [Narrator] What

starts as daredevils

in their flying machines

morphs into an exclusive

form of transportation,

and then evolves into

the most sophisticated

and safe way for everyone

to travel the world.

- [Steward] On behalf

of the flight crew,

thank you for flying with

us and have a pleasant day.

- Air travel equals freedom.

- Air travel makes

the world smaller.

- Air travel is a

boring experience

that allows you to

do something awesome.

- Air travel equals dirtier

air and more pollutants,

but it also equals

beach vacation.

- It doesn't take a lot

to get me on a plane.

It usually takes two

Valiums and a glass of wine.

- Air travel.

(plane engine roaring)

(upbeat music)