Lampl, who joined BA in 1970 when it was still BOAC, recalls that the heyday of these emporia was during the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, more than 80 percent of all airline tickets in the U.S. were sold through travel agencies, from mom and pop shops to the big chains like American Express or Thomas Cook. But for some customers who wanted to simply pay cash or write a check for a flight alone, an airline ticket office was just as good. And for the airlines it served an important function, especially for foreign flag lines, which understood the value of having a visible presence in the centers of the major cities they served.

The few street-level ticket offices that still exist in the U.S. are hardly hang-out spots, but they continue to serve a function, albeit for a diminishing number of customers. American Airlines, for example, has a city ticket office, or “travel center” in today’s parlance, at 360 Lexington Avenue near Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. It’s one of just three ticket offices the carrier maintains in the U.S.; the others are in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. At its peak, the airline had around 120 ticket offices around the U.S., says AA spokesperson Nichelle Tait. But she adds that American does operate 76 ticket offices in other countries, mainly in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. “It’s for those customers who want to pay in cash or who really want that human element,” she says. Some of these outlets perform some baggage services, and work with tourist offices and small commercial accounts, she adds.

And some travelers do seek out airline offices while on the road. Ralph Raffio, a food writer who pens the Mister Meatball blog, says that on a recent trip to Italy he went to an Emirates office in downtown Milan to see about getting better seats for his return flight home to the U.S.—something he felt would be better done in person than on the web. But it wasn’t like the lavish offices of yore, he recalls, it was on a high floor in an office building, with a small staff and limited hours. (Nevertheless, Raffio says he got something for his efforts, adding “they were very helpful.”)

Still, the days when a major airline would literally plant its flag at the world’s swankiest addresses are just about gone. United Airlines says they currently have ticket offices in seven Asian countries as well as in Havana, Cuba; Delta occasionally has opened pop-up stores in New York City and elsewhere, but it eliminated all of its brick-and-mortar downtown offices a number of years ago, according to a spokesperson for the carrier. And airlines like JetBlue started out as all e-ticket operations; however, in some markets like Cuba, for practical reasons, it has to have a physical ticket office.

“I am surprised that airlines haven't tried to keep their brand on high streets around the world,” says Joe Brancatelli, who runs the road warrior site joesentme.com.

But Brancatelli adds that this decline was inevitable. “The city ticket office is an idea that has come, served its purpose, and gone. Paper tickets are a thing of the past. We're very close, in fact, to the time that everything you need will be in your phone. After all, no matter where you are, the web always speaks your language.”