More than 11 million viewers tuned in Sept. 25 for the premiere of Pan Am, ABC's glossy new television series about jet travel in the 1960s, an era when transcontinental flights were glamorous for both crews and passengers, and all the women wore white gloves.

One reviewer called the series "stylish, well-produced and just plain fun," as well as "Mad Men's sunnier, more optimistic cousin."

Although the ratings have fallen in weeks since its debut, the show, which aired its third episode Oct. 9, is still a hit with women ages 18 to 49.

But not with Gisela "Gigi" Minke, a Pan Am stewardess for 26 years and a Santa Fe resident since 1989.

"For me to see the TV series was shocking. They trashed us and the pilots," she said. (The Leonardo DiCaprio film Catch Me If You Can was even worse, Minke noted.)

While the uniforms are accurate (one of the show's executive producers was a Pan Am flight attendant for seven years beginning in 1969), the show got the on-screen relationships between pilots and stewardesses completely wrong, Minke said.

"It wasn't at all like that. They were much older and most of them were married," she said of the pilots. "They were father figures. Some of them were grand old men of aviation."

In fact, she said, the pilots of the 1960s were men like Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III, the US Airways pilot who made an emergency landing in the Hudson River in 2009, saving all aboard.

As for stewardesses, "We were expected to have manners and hold our heads up high," Minke said. Marriage was far from the minds of most of them. "My desire was to see the world more than anything else," she said.

Other plot lines are equally implausible. The idea that a Pan Am stewardess would become a covert operative and agree to carry aboard a package given her by an American intelligence agent, as occurred in the initial episode, "would never have happened," Minke declared.

The real story, as she described it recently, is equally intoxicating — but different.

At the dawn of the jet age, Pan Am, the largest international carrier in the U.S. from 1927 until its demise in 1991, came to Europe looking for multilingual stewardesses to staff its international routes.

Recruiters looked for attractive young women who had college degrees, stood at least 5 feet 6 inches tall (to reach overhead bins) and spoke three languages. Tall, willowy Minke, who grew up in the British sector of post-war Germany, fit the bill. She had studied in Lausanne, Switzerland, Paris and London and spoke German, French and English. She was working at Daimler Benz in Stuttgart when Pan Am hired her.

Two friends prepared her for the interview, which included the setup question, "Why do you want to work for Pan Am?" The answer the company was looking for, and which she willingly gave, was, "I love people."

Minke already had an interest in the rest of the world when she went to work for the airline. Even during World War II, her family hosted many international visitors — students, poets, writers. Her father, a German diplomat who fell out of favor with the powers that be and was shipped to the Russian front in the last years of the war, supported her career plan enthusiastically. "You're doing all the things I wanted to do and couldn't because of two world wars," he told her.

Culture shock

In 1960, Minke and other young European women arrived at Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York. Each was required to bring $300 for miscellaneous expenses, a sizable sum then, which Minke borrowed from her father.

She shared an apartment in Queens, arranged by Pan Am, with two Europeans and two Americans. Two or three groups were being trained at the same time because, she said, "they needed so many flight attendants."

(Minke's sister, Ute, also became a flight attendant but left to join the German foreign service, from which she retired two years ago.)

One of the first things the trainees did was meet with a union representative. "We had no idea what a union was until one girl leaned over and whispered, 'C'est le syndicat,' " Minke recalled. Despite their misgivings ("unions" had a bad reputation in Europe at the time) the young women paid their $10 and became members of the Transport Workers Union of America, along with subway employees. They also filled out forms for green cards enabling them to work in the U.S.

On the second day, they were taken to Merle Norman for a makeover, followed by official pictures. Their hair could be no longer than the jaw line, and once the pancake makeup was applied, "we looked like zombies," Minke said. "Years later, I was afraid the picture would show up in my hometown paper." In Germany at that time, she said, proper young women did not wear makeup. That was just one example of the culture shock she experienced upon arriving in the U.S.

Over six weeks, they received training in emergency procedures and first aid. A female Army colonel warned them never to eat dairy products east of London and to wash with Sweetheart soap (a Merle Norman no-no).

The young women were fitted for their uniforms — a hat, blue jacket and matching pencil skirts — and were sent out to buy girdles and tan "hose." While in uniform, but outside the plane, they had to wear 2-inch heels; inside, flat shoes. Over the years, Minke had three or four different uniforms. One included a bowler hat and a cape.

Life aboard the Pan Am Clippers was luxurious. Trainees were tutored in serving a six-course meal catered by Maxim's of Paris. "We had to learn which wines went with what food, the ingredients in lobster thermidor and how to cook a roast beef on the plane [served on Rosenthal china set on Irish linen tablecloths]," Minke said. "We would take orders. Do you want medium? Do you want rare?"

Instructor/chef Roger Grojean told them, " 'You can come to my kitchen any time and I'll always be happy to see you,' and I did."

The new stewardesses also learned the etiquette for addressing royalty, diplomats and church officials on their flights. When bringing food to the Shah and Shabanu of Iran, for example, they had to bow and back out of their cabin.

Famous passengers

The long flights also gave the young women the opportunity to meet and talk to some of the most interesting and important people of the day.

One notable was Charles Lindbergh, who was on Pan Am's board. He also did consulting, advising the airline on its purchase of jet transports and helping design the Boeing 747. Lindbergh insisted on flying economy (there were just two classes in those days: Economy and President Class, or deluxe). The famous aviator would sit in a row by himself, his hat pulled down over his forehead so he was not recognized, Minke said.

Minke, who had read his wartime journals, would see him with his reading light on during a long night flight. "Can I make you a cup of tea, General?" she would ask.

"Only if you sit and talk to me," he replied.

"He told me such fascinating stories," she said. One concerned American efforts to find out about German development of a metal alloy that might be used in aircraft manufacturing.

In 1962, Minke was on board a night flight from Tokyo to West Berlin with Bobby and Ethel Kennedy. Upon learning that Minke was from Potsdam, Bobby Kennedy asked her to sit down and tell him what it was like to escape before the arrival of the Russians.

The following year, Minke was called to the cockpit just before the plane was to land in Karachi, Pakistan. The captain told her that the flight had just passed Pan Am Clipper 2 flying in the opposite direction and the crew had informed him that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. She was to "compose" herself and deliver the news to passengers in German and French. "I was terribly moved and upset, but I had to do that," she said.

When the plane landed in Karachi, the airline's station manager told the crew Kennedy had died at a Dallas hospital. Two days later, in Beirut, the English-language newspaper had a photo of the slain president on its front page, and by the time the flight arrived in London, the funeral was on TV.

Five years later, Minke had just arrived at her London hotel when she receive the news of Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

"We stewardesses had to be strong, not to break down, to be patient, understanding and compassionate," she said.

Layover luxury

Upon reaching their exotic, and not so exotic, destinations, Minke said stewardesses were well taken care of. They had ample per diems and stayed in luxury hotels, many owned by Pan Am.

Minke often used the layovers to take side trips to places she had dreamed of — Borobudur in Indonesia, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Mandalay, the Taj Mahal, Petra. She hopped a local carrier for a trip to the Polar Circle. From Beirut she would visit Damascus. Once she saw Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn dance at the Roman ruins in Baalbek.

In Karachi, Pan Am kept a boat captain on the payroll who would take crews on fishing trips and then barbecue the catch.

When Pan Am flew into Liberia, it would land at a strip on Firestone's rubber plantation southeast of the capital. The trip to Monrovia, the capital, was a half-hour trip on a DC-3. The crews sometimes drove into the jungle to meet native Liberians and collected money for schools.

At its peak, Pan Am flew into 160 countries around the globe.

Minke flew in and out of Saigon regularly. On many occasions, she said, arriving U.S. soldiers asked her and other stewardesses to sign their wills. In 1964 she was on a flight evacuating Americans from the Congo, including the U.S. ambassador who, Minke said, had been made to eat the American flag.

Some landings were scary. Arriving in Beirut was often dicey because of the rocket batteries on rooftops near the downtown landing strip. "We had to swoop in really low to land on the runway," she said.

While she was never in a plane crash, a friend was on a plane that landed in a rice paddy near Calcutta, flipped and burned, killing most of the passengers. Her friend survived and kept flying, but "I'm not sure I could have continued," Minke said.

Wherever they flew, Pan Am stewardesses were admired for their beauty, grace and intelligence. In the 1960s, a German swimsuit company invited them to appear in a magazine ad. Minke agreed and "got a free collection of their swimsuits."

Volunteering

By the late 1960s and early '70s, Pan Am offered stewardesses a free ticket anywhere in the world during the slow (winter) season to allow them to do volunteer work. Some of them used the opportunity to work with the Thomas A. Dooley Foundation in Laos or the Tibetan Homes Foundation in India, as did Minke.

She had met a Tibetan in Delhi who took her to a camp called Happy Valley (a former British hill station) in Mussoorie, India. The Tibetan refugee camp was built by a sister of the Dalai Lama (Rinchen Dolma Taring), who became "like a mother to me," Minke said. A dozen or more orphans lived in homes with house parents.

"In those days," Minke recalled, "I was not terribly religious. But listening to her made me into a Buddhist." Since then, she has embraced the three main teachings of the faith: patience, loving kindness and compassion.

"I went every winter for six or seven years," Minke said, "bringing clothes and things for the children." She would also take her two foster children to the bazaar to buy shoes and toys.

In 1965 on a flight out of Delhi, she met Austrian Ernst Haas, a Life magazine photographer, and for the next 10 years they traveled together in India, Nepal, Bhutan and other places. They made 11 trips through the Himalayas and collaborated on a book titled Himalayan Pilgrimage (Viking Press 1978).

The couple covered the coronation of the king of Bhutan for Smithsonian magazine. Minke had met the Bhutanese ambassador in Delhi, who invited them to the festivities. In 1974, no foreigners were allowed to enter Bhutan. "The journey was amazing and beautiful," Minke said. Each wedding guest was presented with a set of Bhutanese clothes. U.S. Ambassador Patrick Moynihan "looked smashing" in them, she noted. "We were not allowed to spend a rupee," she said. "It was absolute magic for seven days." (Haas died in 1986, but Minke remains close to his family.)

Rise of terrorism, decline of Pan Am

The glamour of jet travel was dealt a powerful blow in 1969 when Leila Khaled and a team of Palestinians hijacked TWA flight 840 on its way from Rome to Athens, diverting the Boeing 707 to Damascus. Soon there were sky marshals assigned to Pan Am flights. The crews got special terrorism training, and flight attendants learned codes to alert the cockpit to dangers such as bombs, fires and other threats. Minke said she didn't remember them, but "even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

The 1980s brought a slow decline related to the energy crisis, increased international competition, financial problems — and more terrorism, including the 1988 bomb attack on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed all 259 people aboard. Minke had retired in 1986, two days before her 50th birthday. "I saw the writing on the wall," she said.

In 1980, she had married Lobsang Lhalungpa, a former Tibetan monk, whom she met in 1975 at a Tibetan symposium at the Newark Museum in New Jersey. Before moving to Santa Fe, they lived in Washington, D.C., where he worked for the Library of Congress. After her retirement, Minke worked for the World Bank.

Lhalungpa provided Minke, the oldest of five children, with an instant family of two stepsons and three grandchildren. (In the '60s, stewardesses couldn't be married.) In 2008, Lhalungpa, a beloved teacher in Santa Fe, was killed by a hit-and-run driver on St. Michael's Drive.

Air travel, as everyone knows, is not the same as it was in the early decades of the jet age. Many passengers no longer feel like royalty. Nobody wears white gloves. And a flight is more an occasion of dread than happy anticipation and the opportunity to dress up.

But flying for Pan Am was memorable in its heyday, the era portrayed in ABC's new series. The airline, "set high standards," Minke said. "We had the best uniforms, the best meals, the best of everything."

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.