Why is there no seat ‘I’ on an airoplane?

I know this page is generally about all things cruise, however many people joining a cruise ship  have to take a flight in order to do so, so there is a tenuous link here somewhere if you look hard enough.  The reason that this blog came about was that on the last flight I travelled on we were seated on seats H and J, yet the ones at either side were G and K. Now it’s a fair few years since I learned the alphabet, but one thing that has stayed with me is that the letters run in order -alphabetical order and after ‘H’ comes ‘I’ not ‘J’. So where was the ‘I’??? I decided to find out and during my research I found some  fantastic info about air travel through the years. So here’s a potted history – and the answer to the mystery of the missing ‘I’.

The first scheduled commercial passenger flight took place on January 1st 1914. The route was 1 plane from St Petersburg to Tampa in Florida which took 23 minutes. There was one passenger on board and that was the mayor of St Petersburg.  The service only lasted for 4 months however it paved the way for todays many trans-continental flights and  100 years later on January 1st 2014 there were around 100,000 flights carrying over 8 million passengers.

Air travel really became accessible to Joe public in the late 20’s and 30’s and in the UK it was Imperial Airways, a company cobbled together by the government and highly subsidised after the devastation of the first world war that took the lead. By 1938 the airline was offering flights as far as Australia, the longest journey being to Brisbane which took 11 days and had 24 scheduled stops. The aircraft were known as ‘The flying boats’. I say the opportunity was open to anyone, however you needed a very healthy bank balance as the cost of that journey in todays money was around £13,000.

In the 1940’s another world war halted the progression of the industry, however what the war did leave behind was a glut of airstrips with concrete runways and hangers, ready for the dawn of a new era in commercial air travel.

The 1950’s and 60’s were really the golden age of flying with the launch of some of todays major airlines, aircraft with jet engines and of course the majestic Concorde.

The 1950’s also saw the introduction of different classes on flights and airlines installed glass panels to separate first class and economy passengers.  Not a great idea when you hit heavy turbulance and find yourself covered in shattered glass!

During this time the emphasis on comfort and luxury really came in to play with the Boeing Stratosphere aircraft having a ‘ladies lounge’ and the ability to turn every seat in to a sleeping berth -eat your heart out BA and your flat beds! Pan Am ensured every table tray had freshly cut flowers on them and even had huge joints of meat which were carved on the trolley as they passed down the aisle.

But how did passengers pass the time before the days of in-flight entertainment systems, I pads, Kindles and all the other gadgets we have today?  Writing postcards was all the rage so you could show off to your friends how cosmopolitan you were, jetting off to exotic places. The airlines provided postcards with pictures of the aircraft, destinations and even in-flight meals.

On some aircraft you could find cocktail lounges to relax in and Pan Am even had a piano bar where you could sit and have a good old sing song to the sounds of the Wurlitzer grand piano. Mostly people were plied with food and alcohol and spent much of the flight drinking and smoking (especially cigars and pipes) which was allowed anywhere on the aircraft. Unthinkable today.

Moving on to the 1970’s and the dawn of the computer. Technology was changing almost every part of aviation from the cockpit, to the design of the aircraft and even down to the ticketing process.  And this, my friends is what led to the disappearance of seat ‘I’!!! The computers (or more likely the humans that were operating them) seemed to confuse the letter ‘I’ with the letter ‘L’ or the number 1. Therefore the decision was made across the whole industry simply to dispose of seat ‘I’. So now you know. Blame the computer.

In the 1980’s recession hit the UK aviation industry and airlines were cancelling orders for new aircraft left, right and centre. On the plus side the first personal In flight entertainment systems were introduced using video cassettes and laser discs.

War struck again in the 1990’s  and once again the airlines had to find ways to survive the economic climate. This was the decade that airlines began to see that they needed each other as allies and not competitors. So the birth of airline alliances introduced the codeshare concept to air travel. This stumped many passengers in the early days who were booked on for example a Quantas flight, but it was actually a BA aircraft they were travelling on. People missed flights, tried to board the wrong aircraft and there was generally a state of confusion. I think we’ve just about managed to grasp the concept now and the result is far less empty seats on scheduled flights.

The tough financial situation of the 1990’s saw many airlines fold including national carriers such as Swissair and Sabena. However this decade also saw the emergence of the budget airline which as we all know is a sector that has gone from strength to strength.

In to the noughties the air travel industry changed forever following the devastating terror attacks on September 11th 2001. Airport security was ramped up to its highest levels and an air of bewilderment took reign for a while. Although this contributed to the collapse of airlines and many businesses within the travel  industry the aviation sector, ever resilient ploughed on breaking new barriers in speed and cabin comfort.

Nowadays on a plane journey we can plug in our laptops, play games and watch movies on our personal seatback TV’s, knowing that we are on the safest mode of transport that exists. We can travel on aircraft such as the Boeing Dreamliner that combats jetlag with its ‘mood lighting’ or the Airbus A380 which can carry up to 800 passengers with the most spacious seat pitch and its cabin air which is recycled every 3 minutes. We play on our tablets or listen to our MP3 players and don’t have to resort to singing along to ‘the old Joanna’. Future technology promises that 3D printing will be used to manufacture parts of the cabin such as the seats you sit on and the windows you watch the clouds through. All very futuristic, however will we ever get to a stage where we can take a bottle of water or a tube of toothpaste through security.

I wonder what the air travellers of the golden age would make of todays restrictions?

So the future is looking bright for the aviation industry. What would we do without it? Well, what did people do before it?  Ah yes….they sailed to foreign lands on luxury ships. They were relaxed, ate fine foods, took in the sea air with a stroll on deck and mingled with the other passengers, making new friends. No great change there then? Cruising’s is not a bad way to travel is it?