The long life and imminent death of the mag-stripe card

In 1967, the airlines were flying Boeing 727s and Douglas DC-8s. Air travel was still special, and the airlines were raking in cash. But a problem loomed, and it was potentially calamitous. The airlines had placed their orders for the first widebody aircraft-the 747 and the DC-10-and these giant planes would dramatically boost the number of people arriving simultaneously at customer service counters. So to prevent chaos at those counters, the airlines had to find a way to speed up ticket sales and passenger processing.