Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 15

Here is a true product of the Eighties. PEOPLExpress was founded in 1981 and by the time this ad ran was pretty well on its last legs. It started as an economy liner (apparently you could get on the plane at Newark and pay for the non-stop to Gatwick in your seat. The airline was an initial success, expanded too fast, and collapsed. The quickest summation comes from wikipedia, which notes:

Homer Simpson mentions People Express in episode 9F21 of The Simpsons while recalling events of the 1980's, "...People Express introduced a generation of hicks to plane travel".

You can find this ad on a page called "Airchive.com," which offers this comment:

PE offered first class on its European and Trans-con 747 flights. For an airline that charged extra for coffee and checked luggage, this offering of a premium cabin was an odd shift from the strategy that caused it such success in the beginning.

This time the thing that's keeping me from being snarky is that this is just so damn pathetic.