She drapes a blanket over you. You begin to nod off. You hear, through that special fog of travel fatigue, "Place it over your nose and mouth and breathe normally." You start to dream, with that voice seductively leading you off, because you know you are in good hands. The flight attendant, after all, has inspired more male fantasies than any other post-industrial worker. Part of this is because of her position: She is in front of 250 people, all facing in the same direction. This does not often happen in nature. Flight attendants are well dressed, highly competent, often extremely attractive women who also seem to be in really good moods. They are never, never, never afraid of flying. This is a winning combination. This is a sexy combination. When a flight attendant walks into a roomful of men who are prone to fell in love, you hear a lot of hearts hit the floor. Flight attendants also live lives that are much more interesting than the rest of ours. They can drink café au lait in Paris in the morning, walk their way across the Atlantic at 35,000 feet and still catch a Bulls home game that evening. They also have the flight-hardened social skills to make all that competence seem, well, less daunting. Trouble is, when you find a flight attendant who captures your heart, chances are you'll never see her again. It was with that in mind that we thought to give you these second looks. An entire new generation of flight attendants has earned wings since the last time we featured them in a Playboy pictorial (Perfect Attendants, May 1980). Figuring it was time to catch up, we dispatched Associate Photographer Steve Conway and Contributing Photographers David Chan and David Mecey to see if our nation's skies were as friendly as ever. Good news, as you'll see here: They are.
