Wish I could have been a passenger in the 50s.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/15/air-travel-1950s_n_5461411.html

Friends walked with you to the gate?  I remember helping a girlfriend take her child and child seat right on to the plane.  And that was in the early 1980s.

 

But, I would have to say that it felt like the "good old days" when we flew to Italy on Swiss a couple of years ago.  The plane (A340) was roomy and comfortable, the food and drinks were free and the flight attendants were all pretty young women.