Weekend Flashback: The 7 Creepiest Vintage Airline Ads Ever

12:00 pm, February 4th | by Amy Tennery

By most accounts working as a female flight attendant in the 1960s and ’70s was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was a career that offered an unprecedented amount of independence for women. On the other hand, the industry was rife with discrimination — many flight attendants lost their jobs by their mid-thirties — and women were expected to adhere to a very strict set of rules about their appearance (including height and weight requirements). Oh, and until the late 1960s, you could get fired for being married.

Amazingly, a number of the vintage airline ads from this era celebrate this kind of classed-up-Hooters-waitress-at-high-altitude culture, with the flight attendants serving as the cornerstone for numerous promotional campaigns. With that in mind, let’s take a look back at some of the weirdest — and most offensive — ads from the airline industry years ago. And see if you can count how many probably wouldn’t have even made it to publication today.

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1.Delta

Delta Airlines, 1960s: The picture actually shows woman enjoying the 'deluxe amenities' of a Delta flight -- but the ad copy clears up any confusion that luxury is a man's game. "Next trip, come see our working girls work. It's no floor show. But it's funny how you you get to feel like a leading man." Yes, Delta it is funny. [Etsy]

2.PSA

PSA, 1960s: Somehow, the term "stewardess watchers" didn't strike anyone as incredibly creepy at the time. [Softspoken]

3.American Airlines

American Airlines, 1960s: She's your "mother"… but she's also curled up in a chair looking seductively at you? [Dallas Observer]

4.United Airlines

United Airlines, 1960s: Oh, hey. She's just standing there. With some balloons. [Etsy]

5.National Airlines

National Airlines, 1970s: Words fail me. [National Sundowners]

6.National Airlines Backlash

National Airlines Backlash, 1970s: Words did not, however, fail other people at the time. [National Sundowners]

7.Delta Recruitment Poster

Delta Airlines Recruitment Ad, 1970s: "Pretty" is a requirement. [Cranky Flier]

8.United Airlines 2

United Airlines, 1967: The text reads, "Two months ago, Sheri Woodruff couldn't even balance a cup of coffee." A cup? Must have made drinking really difficult. Thankfully United turned The Former Miss Butterfingers into a functional human. [Blogwaybaby]

TAGS: 1960s airline ad | creepy airline ads | vintage airline ads | vintage delta ad | vintage united ad

Anonymous

”
“Pretty” is a requirement. ” So is bubbly. I find that distressing too, since it’s somehow a requirement for all women, even today, to be a bubbly, cutesy princess. Or else they’re a slew of bad names I shall not repeat.
s.g.

I’m not bothered by “bubbly.” I’ve spent the last 20+ years working in the service industry — half of that in retail, and half doing hair. When you’re the face of a company, they want you to be friendly and cheerful. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. The sexualization, on the other hand, is terrible.
Anonymous

Sure, but you could say the same about “pretty” – when you’re the face of a company, it should be a pretty face. I don’t think bubbly has anything to do with being friendly, by the way. Bubbly, to me, means being a cutesy hyperactive chatty child in an adult’s body. Being accommodating or nice should be possible without being vaguely infantile.
Xjaded

What are you talking about? This isn’t the 60′s, the only jobs that are concerned about your looks are ones that are based on your looks like modeling. So, yeah if you sit at home staring at the TV or follow women’s magazines, you are absolutely right. The real world doesn’t work that way.
Ive seen a good mixture of both attractive and unattractive flight attendants. You shouldn’t be the size of a house boat, but maybe that could be because they don’t build planes with isles the size of a damn house boat!
It may be annoying to you but from my experience working in retail, I know that most of those women have the fake attitude to cover up their own hatred for rude, bitchy passengers. If they sound like little teenage girls with pink unicorns plastered to their walls and that is what it takes for them to get through the day, so be it.
Anonymous

What are YOU talking about? What are you defending? These awful decrepit ads, or your own enjoyment of bubbly, pretty women? I’m not at all arguing about the current state of cabin attendants, but about how women are expected to be *in general*, not even just retail. For instance, I’m a bitch because I didn’t flower this reply with how sorry I am that we see two different ways and I hope we can still be friends, winky face teehee.

Btw, jobs are still very much concerned with looks and personality, that’s what job interviews are for. People are human, and so when they hire people, it’s usually on their own personal taste of who they want to work with, which will likely include looks or personality, even though we’d all like it to be purely on qualification. The only way this will ever lean in favor of women is if society itself stops placing value only on women that match the qualities in these horrible ads.

And the ad in question is talking about a *requirement* to be bubbly, not simply it being the women’s choice to be so to keep from killing themselves.

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