How children traveled on board an airplane in the 1950s
Nowadays, flights on airplanes, especially long ones, can bring a lot of inconvenience and discomfort even to adult passengers, not to mention young children. Whether it's the 50s of the last century, when air travel was still gaining popularity and was more of a luxury than a means of transportation. On board, passengers were fed caviar and champagne, their pillows were adjusted and their maximum comfort was taken care of in every possible way. However, few people imagine how children flew in those golden days of aviation ... In 1953, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) invented a special air bag made on the principle of a hammock.
In their opinion, she was supposed to help the youngest passengers, and at the same time their parents, to have a comfortable time in flight.
So that parents could also relax, they came up with the idea of hanging cradles to a shelf for hand luggage — note, open. It was believed that it was completely safe, since the design of the cradle would not allow the child to fall out of it.
But now it's just scary to look at these rare archival photos. Apparently, in the 1950s, airplanes did not have to deal with severe turbulence... Fortunately, even then children were supposed to be held in their arms during takeoff and landing.
In general, modern analogues of cradles for small passengers do not differ much from their prototype of the 1950s. For example, this is a cradle provided by British Airways, the predecessor of which was BOAC. At least they are no longer suspended from the ceiling!
And these are passengers of the 50s on board another European airline — the German Lufthansa. By the way, a baby cradle is also present here.