In 1968, LIFE magazine celebrated the first flights allowed into Russia, a negotiation 10 years in the making, as Aeroflot and Pan Am did reciprocal flights between New York and Moscow. The Russian flight attendant, right, looks more fashionable than what was generally being worn by crew in other communist countries. China’s crew wore grey baggy trousers and shirts, and carried a book of Mao’s sayings in hand, and the requirement to recite them to all the passengers mid-flight.
For many flight attendants it was the golden age: United put its stewardesses up in New York’s ritzy St. Moritz; one TWA stewardess recalls that founder Howard Hughes would board his airline, ask all the passengers to leave, then fill the seats with movie stars and head off for a party.