You didn’t get groped by the TSA back then and didn’t have passenger planes blown out of the skies by underwear bombers. You were treated like royalty by the stewardesses and weren’t beaten and dragged off because some airline employee wanted your seat. And you had leg room.
And no middle class family flew anywhere...ever. In 1964 I flew commercial for the first time in my fanily for a job interview out of college paid for by the company I eventually went with. They flew me to Germany later, and I paid advanced expense cash having no credit cards like most folks then. Cost $2,100 coach. You could buy a car for that much then. Terrorists existed then too but not as many as now, true, but I’d rather have TSA than nothing to keep them off the planes I fly.