The man who read the seams
When Tata Airlines was still finding its feet in the late 1930s, JRD Tata would walk through the aircraft cabin and run his hand along the upholstery. Not as a gesture. He was checking whether the stitching met his standard. He had logged India's first solo airmail flight in 1932 and understood, in a way most executives never do, that the passenger's confidence begins before the engine starts, in the smell of the cabin, the give of the seat, the crispness of the crew's uniform.
