(Click the link above for video)
At Continental Airlines, the 727-100 had 10 First Class and 95 Economy Class seats, if I recall correctly. The only galley was at midships and everything, First Class and Economy Class, was hand-run from that galley.
We used the aircraft extensively on the Houston/Mexico City route because of its performance capabilities ("hot and high", referring to climate and altitude). Since I started my life as a Spanish-speaker, this airplane was my home for the first year or so (along with the DC10-10 PUB which flew the Mexico City overnight trips). After First Class meal carriers were repositioned by the main cabin door next to the cockpit, the galley Flight Attendant would pull out the fore and aft galley service trays at the galley entrance and invert a meal tray to close the gap between them. Then, s/he would stack meal trays like cordwood, back and forth, for the 1 or 2 aisle Flight Attendants to deliver by hand.
Turbulence = disaster!
Some of these aircraft had closing overhead bins. Some did not. It was quite a challenge, especially at Christmastime, to tell a planefull of folks bringing gifts home to their families in Mexico that they could not stow their portable space heater overhead in the open rack!
Good-bye, old friend! By comparison to today's aircraft, you seem positively Medieval! But, at the time, you were a dream fulfilled.
I remember those 727-100, however, those I remember had no first class just freight areas. These were in Micronesia and the airline was informally called Air Mike. Namely Ju-Ju and Nu-Ju which ran back forth between Honolulu and Saipan with many stops enroute taking over 14 hours. I just read an interesting article regarding Air Mike and the Continental hotels. saturday.briefing.com.
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