In 1952 the de Havilland Comet entered commercial service with BOAC. Passengers could travel by jet airliner at unprecedented speed and altitude. The service demonstrated the promise of modern air travel, even though later crashes forced redesign and investigation.

Jet service changed the rhythms of travel writing and modern lyric experience by collapsing journeys that once took days into hours. It also gave writers a new image of glamour shadowed by technological fragility.