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Sure, they had more legroom because the modern concept of economy class did not exist. They also crashed and killed everyone onboard much more often
It's a fair point more affordable is also a kind of better, average Joe could only dream of affording flight. On the other hand it's all new technologies and the price is bound to drop as adoption goes up. You could argue windmills have been around for a while, but let's be honest - calling a windpowered electricity generating turbines windmills is a bit of a stretch.
You could argue that was more a function of training, policies & procedures, and maintenance than of construction.
It's a combination of things to be sure. To give a simple example though, turbine engines are inherently much less likely to quit running than piston engines.
Airline comfort has drastically and steadily declined over the past couple decades, long after commercial airlines started using jets. Maybe not to the level of that first picture - cattle class has been around since I was a kid - but passenger comfort has been measurably squashed just in the time I've been travelling as an adult. Safety hasn't correspondingly improved as a result of technology in that time.
Safety has improved considerably in the past couple decades in the USA.
There's probably no causal relationship to declining comfort though. Comfort has decreased for two reasons:
But, again, most likely due to more stringent maintenance, training, and procedural regulations thank because of any technology improvement. American's average plane age is 11y/o; United is 14 y/o; Delta's average plane age is 17 years old. Despite bring nearly half again older, Delta's safety record isn't much worse than American's. There's little or no correlation between fleet age and safety, and it's more rational that any increased accident rate of older planes is due to wear and tear and general ages of the planes rather than the technology in them.
I'd gladly trade leg room for a somewhat increased risk of death.
That would be "made better" to me.
Better is a useless metric.
I understand your sentiment. On the other hand, I would rather my son have an hour of slight discomfort but arrive safely than be a fatality statistic.
There is a feasible middle ground that is not realistically going to happen however. Slightly increasing personal space and comfort in the newer, safer planes without squeezing every possible seat in in the name of profit.
"Better" does need to defined to not be ambiguous. To me a good definition to use in this thread would be "the net changes over time are objectively an improvement for the use". I think that my middle ground would firmly be "better" but in the current state it is only strictly better for those owning the planes.
They sold flight insurance, life insurance policies you bought at kiosks in the airport, into the 70s. No thanks.