TRANS-ATLANTIC 1958
Presented by Bill Miller
February 23, 2018 @ 6:00 pm
Trans-Atlantic liner travel was still booming in 1958. More passengers were sailing to and from Europe than ever. Alone, Cunard had over a dozen liners on their trans-ocean runs – and carried almost a quarter of all passengers. But then there was a bang, a big bang – that October, the first jet airliners began crossing the Atlantic. Historic Cunard was dismissive and quick to announce: “Flying is a fad – it will pass!”
But within six months, by mid-1959, the airlines grabbed as much as two-thirds of all trans-Atlantic traffic. By 1963, they had 98 percent. The Atlantic liner was all but doomed. After one crossing from Southampton in 1962, for example, the mighty QUEEN ELIZABETH steamed into New York harbor with only 125 passengers onboard being looked after by 1,200 crew. It wasn’t economic anymore!
Bill Miller, who is writing a new book on the Atlantic liners in the Fifties and Sixties, took us on a grand “fleet review” of passenger ships in and around 1958.