Digging through some stuff from childhood, I found this little jewel. My aunt brought this to me from a recent flight, probably 1970-1971 time frame. Airlines used to give out all kinds of goodies. In the glory days, golden era of flight.

My first flight was with Texas International in August, 1977 out of New Orleans, Moisant as I will always remember MSY. The flight routing was MSY-IAH-MAF-DEN. Yes, 2 stops, same aircraft, a DC-9.

Looking back, through my current adult understanding of the hub and spoke system that is the dominant force of airlines today, it really is hard to comprehend a system that more closely resembled an air-bus system, with many intermediate stops.

It didn’t bother me though. I was just excited to be traveling by air, even if it was just a DC-9.

Texas International didn’t last that much past deregulation in 1978. It would be absorbed by Continental in 1982.