How Many Of These Old Airline Commercials Do You Remember?

by SharonKurheg

As our television viewing habits have changed over the decades, so have the commercials we’ve watched. As jingles have given way to CGI and kids who always have a smart @$$ comeback, we no longer get to hear “Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?” or “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid…” Well, except on YouTube.

How many of these airlines commercials do you remember?

Aloha Airlines

“let us show you how to fly”

“The spirit moves us”

America West Airlines

“What we serve is you”

American

“We’re American Airlines, doing what we do best”

Continental

“We’ll show you” (I love all the pop culture references in this one)

Delta

“We love to fly, and it shows”

“Delta gets you there”

Eastern

“America’s favorite way to fly” (back when they were The Official Airline Of Walt Disney World. They’re who we flew on my first flight ever, to WDW, in 1979)

And here’s a VERY Disneyesque Eastern commercial

Frontier Airlines

“Still the one”

Midwest Express

“The best care in the air”

Northwest Airlines

“Look to us”

Northwest Orient

“We give you half the world…”

I also distinctly remember a Northwest Orient Airline commercial that went, “The world is going our way, our way to the world…” but I can’t find it.

Pan Am

“You can’t beat the experience”

Piedmont

“A trip here shouldn’t feel like you’re making a trip there”

“Say hello”

Republic Airlines

“Nobody serves our republic like Republic”

Southwest

This commercial was said to have been done in one take and they were only 20′ apart

TWA

“Up, up & away”

“You’re gonna like us…TWA!”

United

“The friendly skies of your land…”

“Rhapsody in Blue”

U.S. Air

“Look at us now”

“U.S. Air begins with you”

Hope you enjoyed that walk flight down memory lane!

What airline commercials do you remember best?

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9 comments

Christian June 12, 2019 - 6:35 pm

Growing up in Miami, we had a lot of Pan Am commercials. The ones that resonated with me were (I think) “Welcome to our world “ and “We fly the world the way the world wants to fly “.

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Andy June 12, 2019 - 7:00 pm

I wish I could find that old United commercial announcing their new South American routes…with a parrot on a piano playing rhapsody in blue ! That was classic!

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VegasKregg June 20, 2019 - 3:15 am

Oh how I miss the old “Catch our smile (our super smile), PSA” jingle!

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JSD March 12, 2021 - 12:13 pm

Northwest Orient – the world is going our way – found one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_4_3ft8W_w

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SharonKurheg March 12, 2021 - 12:57 pm

HOORAY! Thank-you!

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derek March 12, 2021 - 1:44 pm

For the cynic and the passenger who just had their luggage lost by the airline, they should yell at the baggage office agent, “DOING WHAT YOU DO BEST, right, American Airlines!!!!”

Or the passenger who missed a connection on an important trip on Pan Am, “yeah right, YOU CAN’T BEAT THE EXPERIENCE, PAN AM”. (The jingle often added “Pan Am” after the slogan).

I flew on AA and occasionally on PA but never had the experience to want to shout out these slogans in anger. In fact, I remember having to go to Pittsburgh (actually northern West Virginia) and flew JFK-PIT in the late 1980’s for $39!

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Christian March 14, 2021 - 1:51 am

While a lot of these commercials would come across as satire or mockery in this day and age (“We love to fly and it shows”? Yeah, right…), it really was a very different time. Standards for pretty much everything with the remaining domestic airlines has dropped enormously but we can console ourselves with comparatively cheap tickets in many cases.

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JohnB November 24, 2022 - 8:07 pm

Actually until 9/11, most of the US carriers provided very decent service compared to now. I used to absolutely love flying American to Hawaii. I did that for 7 Christmas holidays 1998-2004. We used to volunteer and usually received enough compensation to buy the next year’s tickets. AA, truly was a great airline. Not like it is now…

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JohnB November 24, 2022 - 8:13 pm

United’s commercials playing “Rhapsody in Blue” with Gene Hackman’s voiceover created a standard in commercials that was very hard to beat for getting people’s attention. Now, if United truly practiced “Fly the Friendly Skies” instead of beating up passengers, UA would have no problem dominating the airline industry. But American workers in general, have a hard time working as team, instead it is “me, me” and “them”. Truly sad! But management is as big a part of this as the employees, because neither value the customers.

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