I remember the tiniest details of my first plane flight, from San Antonio TX to Yuma, Arizona. Back then, we bought our tickets from a travel agency and carried traveler’s checks rather than cash or credit cards. I passed through Phoenix, where a manual security check of my purse identified pepper spray—which I learned I would be leaving behind. Only a couple of flights per day connected Phoenix to Yuma, and I got my connection information from an agent holding a printout of schedules and gate numbers. But even back then, those schedules and gate numbers were computer-generated in an age when most things weren’t.
