Find out what it was really like working for Pan Am!

Monday, 07 November 2011 19:16

“I was a Real Pan Am Stewardess”

The weigh-ins. The polished shoes, white gloves and fitted skirts. The exotic places and ritzy hotels. According to former stewardess and Gainesville local Donna Lutz, it would seem that the TV series Pan Am, about the airline giant of the 1960s, got it right.

When Donna majored in Spanish at the University of Florida, she just wanted to visit a Spanish-speaking country. “I had no idea I’d get to see the world,” she recently told us. But just like on TV, that’s exactly what Donna got to do while working for Pan American Airlines for 13 years during the international airline’s heyday.

By Rachel Rakoczy

The TV show was even right about the occasional unwelcome advances made by male passengers. Once, Donna was offered a bag of uncut jewels in hopes of receiving services not in her job description. She politely declined.

But not all the facets of the show are true-to-life, she explains. In the show, the mother of two stewardesses is upset about the path her daughters chose. In reality, the job was an honor. “This was an elite occupation, and to be chosen, that was extraordinary,” Donna says.

That is one of the reasons why the stewardesses—they weren’t called flight attendants then—accepted the harsh critiques and strict regulations of the job. At 5’7,” Donna had to weigh less than 132 pounds, but her 115 pounds was considered too thin. Pan Am stewardesses had to be at least 5’4,” have a college degree and be able to speak a foreign language. In exchange, they experienced many adventures not available to most—especially young women.

They were put in the best hotels in every city (“the one in Rio was extraordinary”) and were escorted to and from the hotels (important when she was in Buenos Ares during the revolution). “We used to say, ‘Pan Am stewardesses know their way around the world like most people know their way around the block.’”

She spent a weekend in her favorite city, Hong Kong, meeting a “gorgeous marine pilot;” chatted with Charles Lindbergh; saw the Taj Mahal framed by a rainbow and sat front row for Fiddler on the Roof in London for $4.50.

“That’s what Pan Am gave me,” she says. “The ability to see this fabulous world and the ability to expand and grow.” In the ’70s, Donna even became the first woman chairman of the Transportation Workers Union Local 500.

“That’s what’s so wonderful about life,” she told us. “If you open yourself up, there are lots of opportunities out there.”

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