Checking-in for a flight before computers existed?

NewKidOldKid

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How exactly did that work? You get to the airport to check in for your flight, stand on line, hand over your passport and... what? Do they have a paper list of passengers? This wasn't that long ago, but I simply can't come up with any ideas on how it worked.
 

Noah Body

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I got in line with my tickets and identification. You could check in with the sky cap outside, but I always went inside to the ticket counter. Once the confirmed you were who you said you were, they would issue you a boarding pass. As for what happened on the other side of the desk, I think computers have been in use since the 1970s. The SABRE system, maybe?
 

NewKidOldKid

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My character is flying in the early 60s. No computers back then. I'm really interested in what happens on "the other side of the counter," because I need him to be able to tamper with the records. So if they're not computer-based, what are they?
 

PeterL

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I believe that tickets were recorded in a card reader computer system even back in the 1950's. There would have been dumb terminals at the city offices, the airports, and some travel agents' offices. I don't think that the airlines had centralized networks, but there were dedicated phone lines that were used to communicate the ticket sales. The actual physical ticket was very improtant, because iut was the only certain sign that a ticket had been sold.

This article should be ery helpful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system)
 

NewKidOldKid

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I believe that tickets were recorded in a card reader computer system even back in the 1950's. There would have been dumb terminals at the city offices, the airports, and some travel agents' offices. I don't think that the airlines had centralized networks, but there were dedicated phone lines that were used to communicate the ticket sales. The actual physical ticket was very improtant, because iut was the only certain sign that a ticket had been sold.

This article should be ery helpful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system)

Thanks! That's exactly what I needed!
 

PeterL

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Amazing, I finally did something useful.
 

firedrake

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A slight digression:

Best.Boarding.Pass.Ever.

Internal flight on Aeroflot from Moscow to Irkutsk. The boarding passes were strips of cheap newsprint-type paper with the seat assignment written by hand. :Wha:

I think I still have it somewhere.