I got my start working in the flying industry while attending Ramapo College of New Jersey in the early 1980s. At that school, they had posted an opportunity to work as a “co-op” student for an airline based at EWR. PEOPLExpress Airlines was the name and they needed students to handle reservations at their Haynes Avenue facility, which was really the UAL building.
For $5.00 per hour I took the bait and worked from February to August 1984. The job was tedious, the phone system antiquated, the company was a calamity. Still, it was fun and I enjoyed my occassional trips over to the old hangar to watch aircraft take off.
The reservations department was manned by other college students just like me from schools all over New Jersey and New York City. There was even a team of girls who came down from Canada to staff the phones as part of their school’s program. I would have loved to see what they wrote on their reports!
A group of reservations would often take the first flight of the day to Boston, have breakfast, and return to Newark. I think they did this on a weekly basis and “Breakfast in...