Life, Love, and a Hijacking: My Pan Am Memoir: Knecht, Wendy Sue: 9781502523495: Amazon.com: Books

As a former Pan Am flight attendant for 20 years (from 1965 to 1986), I’m delighted to give Wendy Knecht a rousing 5 stars for her well-written, funny, and accurate memoir of her Pan Am years! It’s a particularly satisfying read because it covers the whole gamut of human emotions, from joy to sadness, anger to fear, and many nuances in between. Wendy is very forthcoming about her own feelings and reactions, which helps the reader to feel that they are going along for the ride with her. Having written many blogs on the Huffington Post about the Pan Am experience, I know that it’s very difficult to make the life we lived at Pan Am seem real. It often sounds like we’re (1) bragging (2) exaggerating and/or (3) lying. We’re not. Life with Pan Am World Airways was an amazing mix of the awe and wonder and trauma of being at the center of world history as it was happening, back when Pan Am defined the era of luxurious airline travel. Before reading Wendy’s book, I always felt sorry for those employees who were hired in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, because I felt they had missed out on so much. Wendy’s book makes me realize that her “generation” of Pan Am employees were every bit as thrilled with their adventures as the “old-timers” had been with theirs. And Wendy, in particular, had a knack for taking advantage of every opportunity that Pan Am offered. You’ll come away from the book feeling like you know Wendy, and also about that small window in time when working for Pan Am was the best job in the world. For a company that went out of business so many years ago, this book is yet another example of Pan Am’s true success — a company that inspired undying loyalty from the people who were fortunate enough to represent it. Read this book. You’ll love it.