L'art de faire un bon voyage:" Air France's Hôtesses de L’Air and the Domestication of Flight and Travel within the Declining French Empire, 1946-1960

In 1946, Air France recruited and began training its first class of female flight attendants, referred to as les Hôtesses de l’air.   As revealed by corporate documents, the idea to hire female flight attendants came from the precedent set by United States based airlines.  Much like these airlines, Air France imagined les hôtesses de l’air to play an important role in making commercial flight seem safer and more comfortable to potential passengers. Through an examination of employee magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and advertisements, this paper examines the role of gender in Air France’s marketing of flight and travel within the waning French Empire during the post-WWII period until 1960. 

Promoting tourist air travel to locations within the weakening French Empire became a key economic strategy for Air France during this period.  Additionally, encouraging tourist travel to Asia, North and West Africa served as a new tool of power to carry out France’s late-colonial mission.  Promoting economic and technological development plans became a way to maintain control over regions whose former political connections with the French state were increasingly weakened by national independence movements.  As these destinations were traditionally viewed as un-modern and often dangerous colonial outposts, women—as employees and symbols—became important marketing tools used by Air France to domesticate foreign air travel.  This paper examines how gender, technology, and national identity intersected within Air France’s corporate aims and advertising materials to present a specific view of French women’s relationship to technology, travel, and the world.