In 1992 I was invited to join the inaugural flight of Richard Branson's Vintage Airways, an airline operating holiday flights from Orlando to Key West using two restored Douglas DC3 aircraft offering 1940's style service, livery, uniforms and experience—one of their signature moments was the excited announcement from the flight deck that they had just heard on the radio, news of the Japanese surrender in the Pacific.

I remember the thing that surprised me most—besides Japan tenaciously holding on for another 50 years—was having to walk steeply uphill to my seat.

The end of World War II was a pivotal moment. It saw the almost immediate birth of modern civil aviation and with it, modern business travel, as a huge surplus of ex-military pilots and aircraft fuelled the growth of start-up airlines all over the US and Europe (and with them, a new global transport network).

There was also an instant attitude and altitude change. My uphill walk had already become a thing of the past when the new generation of civil airliner, the Lockheed Constellation, with its tricycle undercarriage, started service in 1945. The "Connie" flew in smooth air at 20,000ft.

These are dramatic changes that seem rather quaint now, but let's not be too smug. Northwest Airlines launched the first trans-Pacific services from Minneapolis to Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Manila in July 1947. Within four years it was operating the route with Boeing B377 Stratocruisers—giant double-deck aircraft with luxurious, on-board passenger lounges. Sound familiar?

United Airlines Stratocruisers carried a maximum 55 passengers (it's taken half a century for the new generation of business-only airlines to re-invent that concept) and were divided into cabins like a train so that passengers could wander about and make use of the dining car; the seating car; the soundproofed sleeping car, with lie-flat berth beds, and adjoining dressing room; downstairs was the luxurious club lounge.

It all sounds very advanced: you can almost hear the Pathé voiceover. Surely we're now light years ahead in journey times? Well, six decades ago London to Sydney would have taken 63 hours, but short haul times have actually worsened because airlines pad out the schedules to cope with delays. Even before the war, a British Airways (yes, there was a British Airways in 1936) 9am departure from London was scheduled to arrive in Amsterdam at 11.10am local time. Today's 9am BA flight to Amsterdam arrives at 11.40am... 30 minutes (and 71 years) later.