JAT takes flight in new book on flight attendants and the Cold War

PROMO

A new book titled “Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants” by Kansas State University Associate Professor Phil Tiemeyer offers a fresh perspective on aviation’s Cold War transformation. Tiemeyer explores how smaller nations, among them Yugoslavia, leveraged air travel to assert political and cultural independence.

Drawing on research conducted in Belgrade, including archival work and interviews with former JAT crew members, Tiemeyer highlights how JAT established itself as a non-aligned airline. By operating across ideological divides, JAT connected East and West, North and South, reflecting Yugoslavia’s unique diplomatic stance during the Cold War.

The book also examines how the airline embodied shifting gender norms. JAT’s stewardesses represented a new image of the Yugoslav woman - modern, cosmopolitan and professional. Yet, like their peers worldwide, they also contended with rising objectification in the Jet Age. Tiemeyer places their experiences within a broader narrative of early feminist movements in aviation, offering rare insight into how gender, politics and air travel intersected.

“Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants” can be ordered here.