Come Fly With Me
A look back at pioneering Braniff Airlines — and inside the battle to save its Dallas operations center
Mar 3, 2013 | 2:30 pm
Photo from Life magazine, 1966
American Airlines may be in the news today, with its rebranding and merger [https: /dallas.culturemap.com/newsdetail/life-american-airlines-us-air-merger-thank-you-sir-may-i-have-another-plus-ranch-is-back/], but it was Braniff Airlines that led the way with cutting-edge design in the 1960s. Headquartered in Dallas, Braniff was a big part of what turned Dallas-Fort Worth into a center for aviation. Braniff’s former operations center at Love Field, now owned by the City of Dallas, is in danger of being demolished [https://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2012/11/city-council-signs-off-on-plan-to-raze-historic-braniff-hq-at-love-field-but-faa-and-thc-still-has-to-ok-proposal.html/] sign the petition to save it!, so it’s a good time to look back at the company’s outstanding record of design innovation. Braniff, which shut down in 1982, made waves with its 1965 advertising campaign “The End of the Plain Plane [https://www.braniffpages.com/1965/1965.html].” Watch the over-the-top 1965 TV ad on YouTube. Braniff redesigned its logo, uniforms, offices and planes inside and out in one of the most spectacular corporate rebrandings ever accomplished. The coyly named “Air Strip,” a flight attendant’s uniform designed by glamorous Italian designer Emilio Pucci [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Pucci], allowed Braniff’s “air hostesses” to go from the tarmac to hospitality in three easy steps, stripping off the amazing plastic space helmet and reversible coat to reveal a raspberry suit and blue lounging gauchos beneath. It’s shown here in a double-page advertising spread from Life magazine in 1966, exploiting the era’s sexism in a playful – but professional – strip-tease.