With the launch of the world's first commercial jets, the Sixties heralded the golden age of travel.
And it seems much of the glamor associated with the new jet set was thanks to the real-life Mad Men hired to create advertising campaigns for America's competing airlines.
The once-wholesome image of the air stewardess became highly sexualized, with suggestive slogans such as 'PSA gives you a lift' and 'Introducing the air strip'.
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High-flying and high hemlines: A Sixties ad for Pacific Southwest Airlines shows how the once-wholesome image of the air stewardess had become highly sexualized thanks to the era's real-life Mad Men
Looking the part: Female staff were recruited as much for their looks as their abilities, and were even required to stay under a certain weight if they wanted to keep their jobs
Uniforms featured thigh-skimming hemlines, with some consisting of little more than hotpants and go-go boots.
Female staff were recruited as much for their looks as their abilities, and were even required to stay under a certain weight if they wanted to keep their jobs.
Victoria Vantoch, author of The Jet Sex: Airlines Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon, says that the new sexy stewardess ideal was a bid to appeal to the emerging youth market.
Designer style: Braniff commissioned thigh-skimming minidresses for its stewardesses from Emilio Pucci
Marriage material? A United Airlines ad read: 'How many girls do you know who can serve cocktails and dinner for 35 without losing their composure? . . . Someone may get a wife'
'Advertising agencies were trying to make airlines seem more hip and cool,' she told NBC News.
'These ad agency executives knew that the youth counterculture and the sexual revolution were spreading across American culture and they knew it was becoming important to resonate with these new cultural mores.'
This saw Braniff commission minidresses for its stewardesses from Emilio Pucci, while Southwest staff walked the aisles in barely-there shorts.
Indeed, they were so risque, that even girls who worked for rival airlines were shocked.
Brains behind the beauty: Real-life advertising executives, whose careers inspired the characters of Peggy Olson and Don Draper in AMC hit Mad Men, created the concept of the sexy air stewardess
Ready for anything: One suggestive Braniff ad showed the variations on the uniforms a stewardess might wear on one single flight
Golden age of travel: Air stewardesses were treated with the same status as models and actresses
Betty Riegel, who wrote Up In The Air, about her time as a Pan Am stewardess in the Sixties, said in her book: 'I couldn't believe how suggestive some of these uniforms and adverts were.
'I thought those stewardesses were really leaving themselves open to all sorts of behavior from male passengers.'
Of course, to appeal to male passengers was the primary intent. Mrs Riegel says that air stewardesses - particularly those who worked for Pan Am, as she did - were considered to have the same status as models and actresses.
Hello boys: To appeal to male passengers was the primary intent of the era's airline ads
Sex symbol: The Sixties stewardess image was a carefully-crafted blend of feminine ideals
Playing a part: A pair of flight attendants pose in an engine with a delighted-looking captain
'We were the ultimate trophy girlfriends and men liked the prestige of having us on their arms and taking us out to dinner,' she wrote. 'Many of them viewed it as a quick and easy way to find a wife.'
Even this concept became a marketing opportunity, with a United Airlines advert in 1967 telling prospective travelers: 'How many girls do you know who can serve cocktails and dinner for 35 without losing their composure? . . . Everyone gets warmth, friendliness and extra care. And someone may get a wife.'
It is little surprise that Sixties stewardesses became such a sex symbol. The image was a carefully-crafted blend of feminine ideals.
Youthful image: Advertising agencies were trying to make airlines seem more hip and cool
Standing out: A Braniff uniform at one point consisted of a lurid patterned bodysuit and hat
'She was, by virtue of her contractual obligations, always single and under 32,' writes Laura Collins in The National.
'She was there to serve the primarily male business customers with the winning subservience of a 50s housewife, while provocatively uniform clad.'
Ms Vantoch explains that the stewardess exposed the gulf between gender ideals and real women’s lives at the time.
Too far? Some uniforms were so risque, that even girls who worked for rival airlines were shocked
Dual role: A stewardess had to 'serve the primarily male business customers with the winning subservience of a Fifties housewife, while provocatively uniform clad'
Thrilling lifestyle: While their peers were getting married and having babies, Sixties stewardesses flew around the world in five-star luxury
'Stewardesses appeared to be these quintessential 1950s housewives, yet there were simultaneously ambitious, independent career women who traveled far from home,' she told NBC News.
And for those girls in question, nothing was more thrilling.
'While most of my peers at home were getting married and having children, I was about to embark on a wonderful career that would pay me to travel around the world in five-star luxury,' Mrs Riegel recalls.
'I was going to have the time of my life.'
Former Pan Am stewardess shares memories of the golden age of air...
