For several decades, Bedfordshire-born Arthur Hailey was the popular definition of a successful, immensely popular author. Hailey purportedly sold more than 170 million books with his patented brand of turning stringent research on spheres of life charged with yearning fascination for the public at large—politics, five-star hotels, high finance, and most enticingly, the new age of jet travel. One of Hailey’s earliest successes was a teleplay written for Canadian TV,
Flight Into Danger, depicting the chaotic results of an outbreak of food poisoning on a transcontinental airliner; it was quickly adapted into a 1957 feature film called
Zero Hour.
Hailey revisited this territory with his 1968 novel
Airport, which became a colossal bestseller, informing his readers about a scene quickly becoming mundane and yet still imbued with an aura of romance and exclusivity, thrilling them with the privilege of seeing that world’s inner workings mixed with racy glimpses into the burgeoning sexual revolution as it affected not just the dashing wayfarers of the sky, but also the earthbound functionaries of airport administration.
Airport was brought to the big screen in 1970 in the midst of what is seen today as a transformative moment in cinema history, as the old studios were teetering and a new breed of filmmaker was beginning to make headway in the industry.
