Thank Jimmy Carter for cheap airfare, smartphones and FedEx

SACRAMENTO – Social media is replete with memes showing photos from the glory days of airline travel, where well-dressed travelers – think scenes from the TV show “Mad Men” – reclined in comfy seats, drank wine and ate cooked meals. It’s a huge disconnect from our modern airline experiences, which are punctuated by surly crowds, automated systems and long TSA lines.

The point of the social-media photos: Look at how good things were then and how awful they are now. Like all nostalgia, they...