Fly me, I'm a perky young blond

Back in the day, when Madison Avenue was fully aware that sex sells - and not just when it comes to Viagra and Peyronie's Disease - there were any number of fairly salacious ads out there. One that stands out was National Airline's "Fly Me" campaign of the early 1970's. In National's TV ads, pretty, young (white, mostly blond) stewardesses introduced themselves  - I'm Diane, I'm Judy, I'm Terri - and then invited travelers to Fly Me.  

In the long run, their sexy ads didn't do National Airlines much good. They nosedived into becoming part of Pan Am, which eventually crashed and burned as well. 

And in the meantime, the stewardess profession is no longer the stewardess profession. They're flight attendants. They've gotten older. And they've gone co-ed. 

Which is not to say that, among certain categories of travelers, there's still not a preference for the sweet young things of yore. 

One of those categories is apparently - and not surprisingly - sports teams. 

And this isn't sitting all that well with flight attendants of the older and not-so-blond variety. So they're taking United Airlines to court. The women - one a Black woman with 28 years flying under her belt, the other a Jewish woman who's been in the sky for 34 years - maintain that:

Airlines Holdings Inc. packs its charter flights for sports teams with young, blond crews and bars older flight attendants from working the plum routes, according to a new lawsuit.

In so doing, the airline bases the value of workers “entirely on their racial and physical attributes, and stereotypical notions of sexual allure,” according to two veteran flight attendants who sued Friday in California. (Source: Bloomberg)

Racial and physical I might have included. But I don't know if I'd have rested my case on "stereotypical notions of sexual allure." Are these women arguing that they've still got it going in their 50's? I'm sure they're plenty fit and attractive. But let's face it, comparatively and perhaps stereotypically speaking, women and men in their 20's do tend to be sexier than those further on in life. (I am, of course, exempting Pierce Brosnan from this comparison.) 

I would think that a better leg to stand on would have been age discrimination, although maybe, legalese-wise, that's implied. 

Anyway, Sharon Tesler and Kim Guillory have been trying to get in on these flights for the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the NCAA, because they're primo assignments.

Attendants who work those flights earn more and are provided with premium accommodations. They also sometimes get tickets to games, including playoff and Super Bowl tickets, and “extremely valuable” infield passes, according to the lawsuit.

Tesler and Guillory claim they were told they couldn't get to work those flights because the teams hadn't put them on their "preferred" lists. 

They said they later discovered that young, white blond attendants -- with less seniority -- were given the assignments.

“United has created a despicable situation,” the women said in the complaint. It’s “as if decades of laws and policies preventing discrimination based on age, race and ancestry, and gender simply do not exist.”

So far, United has little to say, other than the usual corporate-speak about equal opportunity...

Except that some opportunities are obviously more equal than other.

It's nonsense that Tesler and Guillory have been discriminated in when it comes to these jobs. Too bad if the "boys will be boys" and "jocks will be jocks" brigades don't get to ogle cuties when they're flying from one job site to another. 

Isn't it time to put an end to all the "coffee, tea, or me" crap in the workplace?

Fly me, indeed.