Wi-Fi and noise-cancelling headphones. But sound insulation was absolutely non-existent a hundred years ago. The fabric walls of the plane couldn’t dampen the roar of the engine, which was located less than two metres from the passengers. Because of this, the cabin crew handed out cotton wool balls to be pushed deep into the ears to prevent eardrums from bursting, and chewing gum to forcibly equalise the pressure experienced during sudden descents and dives of the plane (pressurised cabins had yet to be invented). “Please, open the window” Advanced HEPA filters today refresh and sterilise the air in modern aircraft every three minutes. And what if you’d felt sick during a flight a century ago? With the strong smells of fuel and burnt oil penetrating the cabin, and constant swaying, the solution was extremely analogue: passengers could open a window in the passenger cabin quite normally, in order to breathe fresh air moving at a speed of 150 kilometres per hour. Smoking, on the other hand, was like playing Russian roulette (though it would become the norm decades later, before being phased out again). The canvas covering those wooden planes was coated with a cellulose-based varnish that made the aircraft aerodynamic, but was also extremely flammable. Fur coats and hot water bottles Instead of today’s digital climate zone setting that maintains the cabin temperature at a pleasant 22°C, heating was a luxurious illusion back then. With planes flying through harsh autumn and winter weather, the temperature in the canvas cabin regularly dropped below freezing. Before boarding, passengers were given heavy sheepskin coats, blankets and even rubber water bottles filled with hot water to place in their laps. The flight attendant would pour hot tea from a metal flask, and in the process try not to spill it on everyone when encountering the first air pocket. It was an era when the very act of flying was a heroic endeavour. Today, as we stride proudly towards the first century of the existence of our national civil aviation and celebrate Air Serbia’s successes on the global market, flying has become a safe daily undertaking. So, the next time a kindly flight attendant offers you hot coffee during a flight, remember wicker armchairs, cotton wool earbuds and icy winds at 2,000 metres.
FLYING A CENTURY AGO FIVE-PASSENGER CABIN
While Air Serbia celebrates its 13 th birthday this October by recording historic successes and offering its passengers the ultimate in comfort, we hark back to how it all looked a century ago
T he Serbian national airline is celebrating its 13 th birthday under the Air Serbia name this October, but preparations are already well underway for the airline’s 100 th anniversary, which it will celebrate next year. Back in 1927, when Aeroput was founded, commercial aviation was still in its infancy and the standards of aviation were nowhere near those of today. In the build-up to the great centenary of the founding of the national airline as Aeroput, which would later become JAT and today’s Air Serbia, we return to the era of the first passenger flights. The star of that pioneering era in our skies was the French Potez 29 biplane. When we cross oceans today in powerful wide-body aircraft like the Airbus A330-200, which can accommodateover250passengers,thePotez of the time seems like a toy. It was an elegant but extremely fragile structure made exclusively of wood and canvas, which accommodated a maximum of five passengers in the cabin. Weighing at the gate We today start the journey with a swift online check-in from a smartphone, while your personal weight is a strictly private matter. However, back in the 1920s, weight was a matter of the laws of physics and a factor of sheer survival. Due to relatively
weak engines and strict payloads, there was no discretion in aviation: passengers had to personally stand on scales in front of everyone in the airport building! If you were heavier, there was a real possibility that your ticket would cost more (as tickets on many European routes were charged per kilogram of “live cargo”) or that you would simply be left on the ground, because the plane would otherwise be too heavy to take off safely. Wicker chairs When you today board the planes of Air Serbia’s modern Airbus or ATR fleets, you are awaited by carefully designed ergonomic seats with reclinable backrests. A century ago? The passengers sat in the most basic wicker chairs. The reason for this was practical: wicker was by far the lightest material. What’s unimaginable today is that the first versions of the passenger planes of that era had chairs that often weren’t even bolted to the floor at all! In the case of strong turbulence (which was constant, because flights operated at only 1,000 to 2,000 metres and went through every cloud), it was a very interesting experience. Strange sound insulation Modern travellers pass the time with advanced in-flight entertainment systems, high-speed
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