Trivia for
Airport (1970) More at IMDbPro »

• The real star of the show, the Boeing 707 (a 707-348C, serial no. 19351 [503rd 707 off the production line], originally registered N324F), was leased to MCA/Universal Pictures from Flying Tiger Line (now merged with Fedex) for the filming of the exterior shots. After filming was completed, the aircraft returned to Flying Tigers and was later sold, going through various owners before meeting a tragic end while on an approach to landing accident on 21 March 1989 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
  
  
• Trans Global Airlines was the name of the fictional airline for the film. For many years it was not unusual to see props from the movie (with the fictional TGA logo) in other Universal films where airliner interior scenes were shot.
  
  
• Expanded from a Canadian TV production Arthur Hailey wrote called Flight Into Danger (1956) (TV), whose cast included Canadian actor and future "Star Trek" (1966) engineer James Doohan.
  
  
• At the request of Dean Martin, Petula Clark was originally offered the role of Gwen Meighen.
  
  
• Dean Martin received 10% of the film's gross, which added an additional $7,000,000 to his salary.
  
  
• Burt Lancaster, who headlined the film above the title with Dean Martin, made a great deal of money from the film, which was a huge hit. Lancaster's contract gave him a 10% profit participation once the movie hit $50 million, and the film grossed $45.3 million in North America alone. Despite the financial windfall, Lancaster said that the movie was "the worst piece of junk ever made."
  
  
• Final film of Jessie Royce Landis.
  
  
• Final film of Van Heflin.
  
  
• Final film of Thomas Browne Henry.
  
  
• The field and terminal scenes were filmed entirely at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport due to the abundance of snowfall during the winter months there, although at first the film's producers were forced to use bleached sawdust as a supplement, to make up for the lack of falling snow, until a snowstorm hit the Twin Cities area during the production of the film.
  
  
• Patty Poulsen, who played Joan, one of the stewardesses aboard the "Golden Argosy", was an actual stewardess for American Airlines. She was the winner of a stewardess beauty contest in which one of the prizes was a role in this film. She was also used heavily in American Airlines advertising of its new uniforms during the mid to late 1960s, photos that have, more recently, appeared in several different coffee table books celebrating the history of the airline hostess.
  
  
• In Sept. 1972, Universal was exhibiting this on a double bill with The Andromeda Strain (1971) with the tag line "Together On One Great Family Program".
  
  
• The final score in the prolific 40-year career of a Hollywood pioneer, Alfred Newman's music for this movie garnered posthumous Oscar and Golden Globe nominations - plus a Grammy nomination for the soundtrack release on Decca Records.
  
  
• During the scene where Mel Bakersfeld and Commissioner Ackerman are arguing over closing down the airport, there is a model in the office of the proposed Super Sonic Transport (SST) to be built by Boeing before funding for it was cut.
  
  
• The airplane model used for the miniature shots in this movie was also used in the episode of "Emergency!: The Girl on the Balance Beam (#5.18)" (1976). It was used when the Paramedics rescue an actress in a harness for a flying scene. She is in front of a night sky backdrop and the Airplane model on wires.
  
  

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