I’m down on the ground once again. And not a second too soon because flying coach is a special trip to hell. I have to tell you that years of flying business and first class has spoiled me to the point where I need my mimosa before taking off or the whole experience is a bust.

Guess who was the loudest a-hole on my flight?

My flight featured a guy who insisted on being overly loud and half-naked, a twentysomething reading the latest issue of Guns & Ammo (always refreshing in a post-9/11 apocalypse), a psychic in the back of the plane doing some seance with her entourage in the back of the plane, candy bar lunches, and (rumor has it) Nicki Minaj in my business class seat.

Apparently Ms. Minaj took a break from her various Twitter scorned earth campaigns to harass a couple of the first class flight attendants. The stories of her belittling behavior floated back to the cheap seats pretty fast with reports of her ordering vodka cranberries at warp speed and once the flight attendant delivered the drink, she would take a single sip and demand another. She wasn’t alone, as her entire crew did the same thing until all of the mini bottles were gone.

Yeah, uh, you stay classy San Diego!

This story prompted a long overdue visit with one of my best buddies: Flight Girl Daniela. I know what you are thinking, “Flight Girl”?, why in the world would I call her that? You I know she’s a flight attendant. However, sorry folks, Daniela doesn’t take herself that seriously and actually makes passengers call her Flight Girl. For those of you who don’t know, the two columns we teamed on (December 2012’s “Flying the Friendly Skies” and April 2014’s “Daniela::Deux”) are still ranked in the top 10 Media Guy Struggles all-time reads, combining for 200,000+ page views.

We met at a Hollywood deli. She had the matzo ball soup and I had bagel chips with a side of well-done pickles. She arrived in uniform with perfect make-up and a pilot’s hat she lifted from her last flight with the promise to return it at her leisure. I asked her about Nicki’s action in first class and she said that’s normal for a the divas. She reported that even the divas of yesteryear can be a nightmare when the drink orders come in.

“One of the legendary stories they always tell us is about Lucy (Lucille Ball). On flights, no one could not speak to her, even for drink orders — you had to ask her assistant what Lucy wanted to drink. Another time, one of our sisters in flight accidentally dropped a glass of water on her and Lucy insisted it was okay, but when another glass was delivered, Lucy tossed the contents in her face and screeched, ‘How do you like it now?'”.

None of all of this bad behavior bothered the flight attendants (aka stewardesses, aka sexy stews) of the 1950s, 60s and 70s more than the way airlines used women and sex to sell air travel. There was even a secret public relations push to glorify the Mile High Club to make being in the air sexier that being on the ground.

“From objectifying women as maps to the promise of someone getting a wife out of their cross-country flight, airlines have long used women to sell tickets'” says Daniela.

With that, we spent lunch talking about fifteen of the most recognizable Triple S (“Sex Sells Seats”) ads that appeared in the pages of some of the biggest magazines ever in print:

1. Finnair – Summer Routes Ad (1968). No need for a real map. Use the back of a curvy brunette. Once you get to Finland, you can plan your pleasure route.

2. United Airlines  – The former Miss Butterfingers Ad (1967): The ad reads “…two months ago, Sheri Woodruff couldn’t even balance a cup of coffee. But she was friendly, intelligent, and attractive…” I am so glad she was at least attractive!

3. United Airlines – Old Maid ad (1967). They called her an old maid because she’s been flying for almost three years! None of that matters because “…everyone gets warmth, friendliness and extra care. And someone may get a wife…” Wow, coffee, tea or a wife! Sheesh!

4. PSA Airlines – Famous Stewardesses Radio ad (1969). Imagine hearing this on the radio today: 

“Right now PSA, the airline that is famous for its stewardesses, is looking for girls. Yes..girls to fill a cute orange mini-uniform…girls who smile and mean it…girls who give other people a lift. Now if you’re single, 18 1/2 to 26 years old, 5 foot 1 to 5 foot 9, 105 to 135 pounds, have a high school diploma or better–come in for an interview at the Los Angeles International Airport stewardesses department Tuesday or Thursday. PSA is an Equal Opportunity Employer” 

Yeah, uh, equal opportunity except the age, sex, height, weight, and marital status parts!

5. United Airlines – The Glamorous Life ad (1966). How great is it that that evolved from the specs of the original stewardess?: “Registered nurse, not over 25 years of age, weighing 115 lbs. or less, not over five feet four inches tall.” The consolation is at least they edited out “bride ready’ in the final copy.

6. American Airlines – Beautiful Girls (1967). I mean thank the heavens for American Airlines because they couldn’t possibly ‘…afford the sweet young thing who just stands there…’ and we were so much better for it.

7. United Airlines – Come Back Soon ad (1966): Only on United…a special brand of work prostitution: “You went to sleep after dinner. Why not? You work hard. When the flight landed, the stewardess smiled goodbye like she really meant it. She does. She even straightened your boutonniere. You get this kind of ‘extra care’ every time you fly with us.” What else do you get?

8. TWA – It’s A Man’s World ad (1953). The only airline ad we could find that didn’t devalue women and refused to trade on a woman’s body and racial profile as the core checklist in their advertising campaigns.

9. TWA – Foreign Accents ad (1968). It’s a shame the TWA ads of the late 1960s couldn’t mimic their predecessors from the 1950s. Really, how great would it be to select one of your four hostesses on TWA?: “…they come in four styles with hostesses to match: Italian (see toga), French (see gold mini), Olde English (see wench). And Manhattan penthouse (see hostess pajamas—after all all hostesses should look like this, right?)” Toga? Wench? This is about as low as it gets.”

11. Japan Airlines – How to Train and Airline Hostess (1959). This ad could also be called How to Train Your Future Foreign Wife…take a read: “A Japanese girl is taught from childhood the satisfaction of doing something for its own sake….You feel her real desire to please you, and only you. For she satisfies herself only as she succeeds in making you happy.”

12. American Airlines – Conrad Hilton ad (1966). American somehow tried to justify that women are just products with this stellar copy: “Flying just isn’t much of a thrill for Mr. Hilton anymore. He expects attention for his money.”

14. British Overseas Airways Corporation – all her Suki ad (1964). Isn’t it great she is more thank just beautiful? After all, she “can serve you sake, sushi, and teriyaki steak with ancestral grace.”

—
EDITOR’S NOTE: 
Part 2:
Read part one of Daniela and Michael here.


Part 3:
Read part three of Daniela and Michael here.

The post Nicki Minaj took my seat in business class, plus a visit with Flight Girl Daniela! appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.

Two weeks ago I posted a few of the letters from my readers in my annual mail sack column and while I didn’t post any of the correspondence about Flight Girl Daniela, I did feel guilty looking back. After all, my interview with the flight attendant with a world of sass is by far the most widely read column in the nearly seven year run of The Media Guy Struggles.

There’s nothing like #TBT with Daniela.

I posted Part One as kind of a tongue-in-cheek throwaway column to sum up the Mayan Calendar freak out we all suffered through in December 2012. Then it took off, just like one of those giant Airbuses might, to the tune of 113,000 plus page views. Think about that – 113,000 hits for two people who met up in business class on an empty plane from New York to Los Angeles and ranted on about the behavior of passengers.

Now, eighteen months later we still keep in touch and even caught a modeling class together and I thought it was time to update the sorry state of of how people act on planes.

MEDIA GUY: What’s the new trend in asinine behavior on board your flights?

FLIGHT GIRL DANIELA: Bare feet on planes! Honestly people, STOP THE MADNESS. To the footwear challenged, I say to you: Don’t f*****g do this! My airplane is not your oddly-shaped bedroom. It’s a hermetically-sealed tube doubling as public transportation. “Public” meaning that you didn’t charter it! You’re not the
only person on this sucker. Who wants to be near your toe-jam and athlete’s foot and irritated corns. Hey, girls — that applies to you too.

“Honestly people: STOP THE MADNESS!”

MG: At least they don’t ask you to do pedicures (laughs).

FGD: Don’t laugh. You’d be really surprised by the idiots
that fly. They think it’s still the seventies where all of those sexists
stewardess advertisements ruled the landscape. Remember, in the 1970s when
National Airlines (*) launched their “Fly Me”
campaign?

(*) – National Airlines later merged into
Pan Am.

You know the one where their aircraft were given female
names and the flight attendants starred in the advertising? Thank goodness I
wasn’t alive, be it seems that you didn’t just ride on the airplane…you got
to ride the stewardess as well. Michael, honestly, find the add and post it
with your column! But it doesn’t stop there. How about the new “Got
milk?” ads that claim that milk eases PMS symptoms—thus making your wife
or girlfriend slightly less of a crazy, irrational bitch every month? Who makes
these ads? Promise me me YOU don’t do stuff like that…. The anti-woman /
anti-girl has to stop some decade.

National Airlines, an, uh, class act. (More ads at the end of the column.)

MG: Why can’t they just recline their seat and keep their shoes on?

FGD: Ah, that guy! The Passenger Who Reclines Their Plane Seat. There are few mile-high issues as divisive as the battle over the reclining seat. Some feel it’s their right to sit back and relax on a long flight. After all, they’ve paid good money for the trip and let’s just admit it, most seats are lumpy and just plain wrong. Others find this act ‘plane’ inconsiderate saying the reclining seat should be eliminated. There are fist fights, crushed knees, broken laptops, spills and untold animosity. People are prisoners in their 17-inch across seat who passengers recline, the scent of Head and Shoulders wafting towards my nostrils that are mere inches from your head. My airline is really, really good at taking things away, so how about taking away with quasi Barcalounger?

MG: While we were being horrified by the anaconda, you mentioned something about fakers, but didn’t finish…

FGD: …Fakers are THE worst. Hey fakers! Don’t ask for a wheelchair when you’re perfectly ambulatory just so your lazy ass can board the plane first without walking those exhausting thirty feet. Here’s the thing, first on = last off. So when we land, you will need to wait until every f******g passenger has deplaned before you are able to do the same. And to the majority of you that are somehow healed (CAN I GET AN AMEN?! or a WooWoo) mid-flight? From now on I vow to come find you in the terminal and out you in front of your family as a “faker faker belly acher.”

MG: But what’s worst? The faker or the the insufferable rude foreign traveler?

FGD: How do you say “go f**k yourself” in French?

I hope the raging B that spoke at me on my last trip to a French-speaking country reads. It may not sound like much, but for me it was enough to make me want to pull her hair out by her horrific ombre roots. I was performing my final compliance when I come across this full-fledged smellbag with her tray table down, still using her laptop. I politely ask her to power it down and stow it.

Her response?: Nothing. Zip.

So, I ask her again. Her response?: Still typing.

I ask a third time while gently waving my hand in her path of vision so she can see me, again nothing.

On my fourth attempt, I slightly raised my voice and asked again. She doesn’t bother to stop typing or look up from the screen and says “I KNOW!!” (like I am inconveniencing her). Of course someone being an smellbag before takeoff is never a good sign.

Cut to the beverage service and when I ask her if they would like a beverage, I get the zero response treatment. After I finish my service, I move down the aisle so I can collect the trash and that’s where she sticks her arm into the aisle stopping me mid stride: “Ummmm, is there a reason you skipped us?” Really? First off, if you need to get my attention, kindly ask for it like a normal human being. Maybe an old fashioned “excuse me”. I do not take well to someone pulling at my blouse, trousers, apron, tapping my shoulder, flailing their arms in front of me, snapping their fingers, shaking their cup, etc. NOT. COOL. Keep your hands to yourself and be polite. I mean seriously, who raised you? Uhm, yeah, that’s why I skipped you.

I get one of these ladies on every flight…

MG: Surely, it’s not all that bad?

FGD: No, not at all. I just find it funny that people want to take it out on us for the baggage fees and delays and TSA pat-down incidents. Trust me, we are getting paid less than you are! I mean, if you where at McDonald’s would you go behind the counter and serve yourself? We get people who do that all of the time. Don’t touch the cart for goodness sakes! And, do not even think about helping yourself to whatever you want off of it. Just ask.

Oh, maybe I need a vacation from traveling. Let’s go find some more anacondas to draw!

American Airlines…

…and Continental were also sexist ads culprits.

—
EDITOR’S NOTE: 
Part 3:
Read part three of Daniela and Michael here.

The post Daniela:::Deux appeared first on Media Guy Struggles.