If you’ve visited central Florida for a Disney vacation, you may have wished there was an easier, faster, way to get from the Orlando International Airport to Walt Disney World.

Before that resort opens in October of 1971, planning for Walt Disney World includes a large jet airport within the resort’s grounds, to make it easy for visitors to start and end their visit.

Join me for a look at how air travel influenced the plans for the development of Walt Disney World, and a special period of time when it was possible to buy an airline ticket that would land you within the resort itself!

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Some air travelers are more than VIPs - they’re the VERY VIPs, the heads of state or monarchs whose travel comes with unusual requirements for privacy, secrecy, and security that just can’t typically be met by a scheduled airline service.

Join me for an exploration of how air travel by heads of state began, has been intertwined with airline flying for a century, and will keep evolving past the 2020s.

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Lavatory. Water closet. Washroom. Toilet. WC. Commode... or there's many more!

Whatever name you choose, an airliner’s onboard personal comfort facilities are seen by a lot of travelers as an essential resource to have on their flight.

Join me for this exploration of the history of airliner toilet facilities, and their evolution from the most basic equipment to meet flyer’s bodily needs, to the sophisticated hygiene systems installed in new airliners today.

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There’s a long history behind the “mile high club” lore, dating back to the 1780s. Stories of romantic interludes while at altitude hit the news pretty regularly over the years, but usually because of police involvement, and legal charges being filed.

With this episode of the Airline Time Machine podcast, I’ll look at how people “getting romantic” in the air came about, the challenges that are created for airline crews and other passengers, and notable incidents that likely resulted from “love aloft.”

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Not too long ago, cigarette smoking was widespread, and permitted, onboard most passenger airliners worldwide. A lot of travelers boarding flights today who don’t remember that era would likely be surprised by how widespread inflight smoking was, by the way the process was managed, and by the smell of airliner cabins and the damage that lit cigarettes caused to airliner cabin furnishings.

With this podcast episode, let’s take a look at the history of smoking onboard airliners, how that smoking was gradually regulated out of existence, and a few traces of that smoking past you can still find on your next flight.

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It's OK - this doesn't involve some sort of domestic pet violence. But this episode title highlights that assigned airport codes can sometimes appear to be something very different than their original intended purpose!

Three-character codes that identify individual airports are critical for managing air travel safely and accurately, but the code an airport ends up with may not make sense when you first come across it, and often reflects much more than the airport's name.

This is a look at how the airport codes we use today - as passengers, travel planners, airline staff, or airport managers - first came about, and we’ll explore a few of the more unusual examples!

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In February of 1995, one of the busiest airports in the U.S. - Denver's Stapleton International Airport - closes, replaced by the new Denver International Airport several miles to the east.

Over the next few years, the massive infrastructure of Stapleton Airport, including its terminal building, hangars, parking facilities, support structures, and miles of runways would disappear, largely erasing more than 60 years of aviation activity.

This is the story of how a busy international airport was entirely replaced in just one night, then was erased from the landscape to become something entirely new!

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In 1985, more than 200 airlines provide scheduled passenger service on U.S. domestic routes under their own names and branding, and the country's airports are busy, crowded centers of activity.

But four decades later, only fifty airlines remain serving U.S. internal routes, and only fifteen of those operate airliners with 100 or more passenger seats.

This is the story of how the number of U.S. airlines soared by the early 1980s, then hit a 20-year period of intense consolidation - and we'll learn where all the airlines went!

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