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"QUANTUM SHOT" #119
Link - by A. Abrams



Vintage Commercial Aviation Promotions: Flight Attendants

There was something in the air in the early years of commercial aviation. Perhaps more excitement, perhaps more glamorous stewardesses... in any case, it's worth savoring once again.











"Aeronaves Dominicanas" airline serving all the cities in the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean:



"South West Airlines" in the 1960s were a wonder to behold:



















Air Jamaica stewardesses demonstrate the Lockheed in 1969:


(image via Scott)



French fashion statements:



Vespas, girls and planes go well together:




(image via)

Braniff Airlines trippy flight attendant attire, designed by Emilio Pucci:




(image credit: Barry Hoggart)

1968 was the year of the space helmet to protect the flight attendant's hairdo:



MODERN TIMES:

For the modern version of "stewardess's flight dance"
see this series of ... anime

alternative:



Have a good flight!



See more at this site

Sources: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

CONTINUE TO NEXT PART! ->

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4


Category: Airplanes,Vintage




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YOUR COMMENTS::

46 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Such a great site, i love your content! I check this every day at work. Can you link to mine? techandtonic.com?

The flight attendant pics are great, so is that cyberpunk stuff!

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Blogger Avi Abrams said...

hey thanks! i linked to you in blogroll

all the best,
Avi

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

You made my month.

therealdonquixote hearts actual attractive stewardesses, not "airline attendants".

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

The first picture is from a Lavazza ad from 2006.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

wow... those dames have some great gams.

loving the go-go boots, but what on earth is up with the girl dressed like a bullfighter??

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Too damn funny. Those are great pics.

This remind me of the book written by, and about a Stewardess in the 60's ... "Coffee, Tea or Me."

It was, I guess, considered racy at the time but it reads like porn if it were sanitized by Disney.

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Blogger Unknown said...

*chuckle* I'm old enough to remember the Braniff "bubbles"... ahh, the days when women were girls! Women have gained far, far more and we're all better for it - but there was also a unique spirit of fun in those days that we've lost . . . society gains, society looses . . .

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

I guess the MEN enjoyed those days. It was like being "Miss America" to be an airplane stewardess then. I happened to know a girl who was one.

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Blogger Spirit Beast said...

Just go to Latin America. In the Bogota airport I saw some wonderful costumed stewardesses.

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Blogger Karl Elvis said...

Man, i remember those PSA uniforms with the weird little cleavage key-hole. Those made quite an impression on my pre-teen mind when we flew PSA from San Jose to Los Angels in the '60s.

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Blogger paul a'barge said...

um, have you flown recently on an Asian airline.

The staff look exactly like this, and they treat you like royalty.

What happened to flight in America?

Unions.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

The jet engines were better-engineered then, and could suck in up to three stewardesses without wiping blades.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

paul a'barge said...
What happened to flight in America?

Unions.


Curse those unions for making it so that women over 35, those not blessed with model looks, and even some men can work as flight attendants!

What happened to the good old days when stewardesses had to wear short skirts and smile while they were groped and otherwise sexually harassed by businessmen the age of their fathers who reeked of cigarette smoke?

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

What! no fat bald gay men or 200+ lb women? Those girls were hot forty years ago...

Too bad the same ones are still working today!

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the Asian airlines. The woman aren't ashamed to be women.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

The change in flight in American has nothing to do with unions and everything to do with the 1976 deregulation of the industry. And it's obvious from the average ticket prices since then, quality problems aside, that deregulation was (as it nearly always is) the right thing to do.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Groovy" doesn't even begin to cover it.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

there’s no uniform sexier than the one-piece mini-dress and off-kilter cap, especially when set off by go-go boots.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

How to Save the Airline Industry:
I, for one, would fly a lot more if stewardesses still wore go-go boots

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

I *LOVE* these stewardesses!! Awesome! :)

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah the good old days. When even college educated women were willing to be treated like servants and sex objects.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

I lived in southeast asia in the '60s. For in-flight entertainment the flight attendants on Thai Airways used to give a style show. Sometimes they wore bikinis.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yet another reason why I was obviously born in the wrong decade.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

friendly skies

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Blogger jaytea said...

Oh, what memories! I was a flight attendant for Western Airlines back in the day. Our uniforms weren't designed by Pucci, oh, but the job was wonderful! It's not like that anymore.
Janet T

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

You should take a look around Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. The rest of the world still realizes that, like models, stewardesses have a definite expiration date and don't let them hang around until their fifties like the bitchy old broads you see on Northwest.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Too bad they're all OLD now.

http://s1.gladiatus.us/game/c.php?uid=31043

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some of those chicks are serious hunnies, why are stewardesses wearing frocks and semi-gowns these days? Men are still men - BRING BACK THE STEWARDESS MINI'S! =D

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whats with the matador uniform in the fifth picture, Air Spain?

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

now I understand why they are called the good old days...

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

"What happened to the good old days when stewardesses had to wear short skirts and smile "

Yeah it's so much better nowadays now that we have fat ugly chicks with attitude as stewardesses. Thank god we don't have to deal with those thin cuties who smile anymore!

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Simply AWEFUL garbage photography... women fly planes, not dress up like Austin Powers fembots and serve duty free drinks on them. If you're not flying combat, you're not flying.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Believe it or not there was a glamour time in commercial aviation. Alas, today, it is all gone, reduced to the bottom line of corporate balance sheets, AND, the desire of the traveling public to get there cheap (but, they still want all the amenities of the old days).

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

just wondering... if i wanted to do an old school flight attendant halloween costume, how do i make it obvious that i'm a flight attendant and not just, like, someone from the 60s or 70s?

and i LOVE these photos.

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Blogger Tali said...

Congrats! I've nominated you for a Lemonade award, because I think you have a great pinup blog. :)

Check it out at http://www.thepinupblog.com/files/036ed21e8968766be1e7b23471d540f2-180.html

Tali

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Blogger Patty said...

Thank you for posting these. Those were the good old days.. I began working for the airlines in the 70's but not as a flight attendant. I worked in sales. I started flying with my family in the 60's and even through the 70's before deregulation... it was wonderful to fly. Now I hate it though I fly around the world for my work. I wish it were like it was.

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Blogger Avi Abrams said...

Thank you Tali - much appreciated.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah...romanticizing objectification.

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Anonymous Mary said...

I worked with PSA / USAirways from 1978- 1998- it was a wonderful career! I remember sewing the metal buttons of my uniform with dental floss so they wouldn't pop off in flight!! Thanks for the pictures!!!

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Anonymous The Horse Training Guy said...

Great pics! Kind of makes me wish things were still like that. Reminds me of the scene in the movie "Catch me if you can" where he struts through the airport with all the stewardess'.

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Blogger David said...

Most of these women are still working (if you can call it that) .Long past their usefulness Now they don't look so good don't serve squat and think they can have anybody arrested on the spot

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

^Agreed. They all look like this

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/8236/4949513.jpg

*puke*

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's a photo of a troup of Southwest Airlines flight attendants boarding one of their planes suggesting it was the '60s. FYI, Southwest didn't exist then. It began in '71.

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Blogger ChezGigi.com said...

The days shown above have been gone for fifty years, and were gone when I began flying for Pan Am in the seventies. Flight attendants included men, by then. And even back then, no one took all of this seriously; it was a fantasy of a traveling businessman, that he could sleep with a good-looking woman who only cared about his comfort, and would disappear by the next day, before his wife found out. Part of the reason Braniff went out of business was the CEO's profligate use of funds on uniforms. The FAs would have full theme uniform changes enroute, depending on the cities they were traveling to; a cowboy outfit for Houston, and a space outfit for Cape Canaveral. Crazy!
For all those people who wish the old days would come back, forget it. People have a right to keep their jobs, regardless of their increase in age or girth. To get even a small portion of those days back, you would have to pay three times as much for your ticket, dress up in a suit and tie, leave the screaming babies and kids at home, and behave with the courtesy and manners that were expected of travelers back in the fifties and sixties. Pan Am actually banned celebrities like Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra for misbehaving and being rude. Now, those were the days!
gigi wolf, author of the Pan Am Pages, and A Woman's Guide To Everything on ChezGigi.com.

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Blogger ChezGigi.com said...

Avi- I would love to link with you, too!
ChezGigi.com and the Pan Am Pages

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, the pictures of the PSA (the best airline there ever was!) Flight attendants are from the 1970s.

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