Emma Beddington

Not just a trolley dolly: the demanding life of an air hostess

Julia Cooke follows the fortunes of three Pan Am ‘stews’ who faced hijackings, armed insurrections, near-misses and hair-raising evacuations

Pan Am stewardesses in the 1970s. Credit: Alamy
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  • Come Fly the World: The Women of Pan Am at War and Peace

    Julia Cooke

    Icon Books, pp. 352, £16

Come Fly the World is not the book I thought I was getting. The slightly (surely deliberately) pulpy cover — a glamazonian stewardess, her mirrored cat-eye sunglasses reflecting a runway — promised a Mad Men-era history of silver service and highballs at 30,000 feet, glamour, frocks and sexual shenanigans.

Admittedly, deprived of the quixotic delights of a Ryanair snack pack shared with a fractious toddler on a delayed 5 a.m.

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