TV series 'Pan Am' is a flight back to a better time

BND.com ^ | Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 | Gary A. Warner: travel@ocregister.com

[I am Richard Brandon]

"It requires a bump up to business class or better on Singapore Airlines, but a similar experience can be had.

Try Cathay Pacific or indeed, any airline that can avoid the PC crap that is being forced down the throats of US based airlnes. An interesting side comment, those early stus were pretty young women and h......... men. Got good attentive service from all of them!

[The Great RJ]

The glamor of flying is long gone and now flying is little different than taking a bus trip in some third world country except perhaps for the absence of live chickens.

[Clock King]

I like it, but really, it’s just a weaker version of Mad Men.

[Clock King]

Or I should say it’s a weaker spin-off of Mad Men. MM is a very different story.

[willk]

Beautiful women and beautiful planes. Great show. Great CGI. Much better cgi compared to the movie Pearl Harbor. The 707’s and the dc-6 or 7 (Bay of Pigs episode) looked so real.

[tanknetter]

Today, we are treated like we have been arrested, without the Miranda warning.

Yup. It used to be that sending a note up to the Captain reading 'Fast. Neat. Average.' would get you a trip to visit the cockpit.

Now it gets you yanked off the plane followed by a multi-hour interrogation by TSA and the FBI.

[SES1066]

...or Vaseline.

Are you talking about the greasy TSA or what you need to squeeze into those "standard fare" seats - or both?

[katana]

Nearly any of the Pacific Rim based airlines (consciously excluding Qantas - used to be 90% flamingly gay and overtly rude males on their trans-pacific routes - and ANZ - good but no comparison with the Asians) provide a level of service which American and European lines can only dream of. But I still have to rate SQ as top of the top.

There are some European carriers that seem to realize most of their travelers are men and select their flight attendants accordingly. I recently was on a series of flights into, around, and back from Greece on Aegean Airlines. The flight attendants all looked like 19 year old aspiring models (e.g. quasi-anorexic) but very pretty and polite. Not much good in a flight emergency, but in such an event you're about 99.9% unlikely to get any flotation use out of your seat cushion anyway.

I know what some of you are going to say ... yes, I'm a sexist swine.

[Secret Agent Man]

Passengers weren’t trying to blow up their planes back then either.

[Secret Agent Man]

What, you don’t like the gay male stewards today?!?!

[Secret Agent Man]

Oh come on, they look like flying hookers. That ain’t a classy look. Nothing fashion in the 70s looked good except daisy dukes and unless you’re serving drinks you can’t wear them at work.

[Moonman62]

Ah yes.. I long for the days when the stewardesses were pretty and friendly, and flying was an enjoyable experience.

Back when the federal government had authoritarian control over the airline industry.

[Secret Agent Man]

Back then travellers could dress to travel.

Now you have to dress in order to be stripped searched. Dressing up is just more layers to have to take off and put back on.

[Secret Agent Man]

Vast majority of male stewards on any US carrier are gay. Have a relative who’s worked with em for over 40 years. Knows what she is talking about.

[T-Bird45]

Uhhhh...yeah, what you said.

[jackieh]

It was a real metal wing pin, not the plastic, tear of the tape and slap it on pin! Also, don’t forget, you got a Junior Stewardess certificate with those wings! Still have mine!