I agree with you, but keep in mind that's probably what 40-year-olds in 1903 said about planes after hearing about the Wright brothers. Sometimes things do actually change.
If we assume this means "in the next 50 years", they wouldn't be totally wrong. You could make the case airplanes were only on the cusp of being "a meaning[ful] part of life in America" by 1953 – planes only overtook trains for domestic US travel in 1955, and 1957 for trans-Atlantic.
