Secret Airline Lists, Men-Only Flights & Blaming Flight Attendants: Inside Skyjack Issue 3, the 1990s Queer Air Travel Zine

BY MARK CHESNUT

The third issue of Skyjack Magazine — the queer air travel fanzine I founded in the 1990s (which recently joined the Museum of Flight’s permanent archives) — has landed online for your reading pleasure. It’s a fascinating snapshot of LGBTQ+ air travel culture, from a decade of major change in the queer community and the airline industry.

By Issue 3, I’d already sold Skyjack Magazine to a publishing company called Practical Graphics. That gave me the ability to expand the publication’s platform, distribution and roster of contributing writers (which included a growing number of journalists, authors, airline professionals and enthusiasts).

The continued growth of Skyjack Magazine allowed us to address an even greater variety of topics — from campy airline movie reviews to workplace issues faced by LGBTQ+ airline employees. 

The fact that the complete Skyjack archive has been accepted into the permanent archives of the Museum of Flight — the world's largest independent aviation museum — is a testament to the timeliness of this little fanzine's timeliness. I also explored the theme of queer identity and the allure of travel in my memoir, Prepare for Departure: Notes on a Single Mother, a Misfit Son, Inevitable Mortality and the Enduring Allure of Frequent Flyer Miles. 

Here are a few highlights of what you can find inside this issue (click here to view the full PDF and read the complete articles).

The cover feature, “Much Ado About Gaetan,” dives into the story of Gaëtan Dugas — the flight attendant long (and wrongly) labeled “Patient Zero” during the early years of the AIDS crisis.

Back in the early ’90s, of course, this was not a historical topic. It was current memory. Airlines had become part of the mythology of AIDS transmission, and flight attendants were unwilling celebrities in a moral panic. We even interviewed Sally Hill, a former colleague who remembered Dugas not as a villain, but as a "gorgeous," "impeccable dresser" who made straight pilots cringe with his flamboyance. It was a vital piece of myth-busting, reminding our readers that Gaetan was a friend and a coworker, not a monster.

This deep-dive piece walks through the media hysteria, the science and the human reality — and does so with the kind of voice that only comes from people who lived through the moment, rather than writing about it decades later. It’s an insightful look at the powerful intersection of airline culture and queer history —the finely tuned niche that was Skyjack’s specialty. We weren’t writing about airlines or gay life. We were documenting the overlap nobody else bothered to record.

After a serious examination of AIDS stigma, the magazine immediately pivots to an article titled “Delta’s Naughty List.”

In 1994, a California jury awarded a quarter-million dollars to a former Delta Air Lines employee after the airline was caught keeping a “secret list” of HIV-positive staff. The piece covers allegations of internal airline politics at Delta Air Lines, disciplinary actions and the peculiar ways corporations policed touchy subjects in the era before diversity policies were fully developed.

As noted in the issue, the airlines had a "strange operating policy" of not doing anything to comply with sensitivity until they were forced to by a lawsuit. It’s a sharp reminder of the "AIDS-phobia" that permeated the industry and why we needed a publication like Skyjack to keep the carriers' feet to the fire — or at least to the tarmac.

To balance out the heavy news, Issue 3 also takes a deep dive into airline history with a look at United Airlines’ "Executive Men Only" flights from the 1950s and 60s. Imagine a DC-6 departing at 5:00 PM, populated entirely by businessmen being served "steaks cooked to order," cocktails and cigars. The airline even provided slippers and the late stock market edition of the newspaper. While these flights were intended for the "Executive" man (who was presumably straight and possibly heading home to his wife), looking back at a plane full of pampered men sounds just a bit gay, doesn’t it?

Issue 3 also continues one of my favorite recurring features: Hollywood movies set in the world of air travel — specifically, the unflattering flicks that the airlines likely never projected on the big screen at the front of the cabin.

I called this series “More Movies the Airlines Won’t Show You.” It was my personal forum for gleefully skewering Hollywood’s (often ridiculous) take on airline disaster melodrama and airborne camp. In this issue: “The Crowded Sky,” a 1960 sudser with a stewardess named Kitty who declares, "I'm the ex-champ of tramps, and ex-tramps make the best wives."

The co-pilot’s response? "Shut up!". He was too busy sketching pictures of kittens.

This kind of campy media analysis was the heart of Skyjack; we weren't just looking for gay characters. We identified the campy subtext in everything from airline branding to disaster movies.

As in earlier issues, Skyjack Issue 3 veers happily into airline nostalgia — including a sentimental journey to the American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum, the story of a British airline employee’s professional journey and a personal essay about one enthusiast’s childhood fascination with commercial aviation in Kentucky.

I also interviewed best-selling author John Berendt for this issue, and he shared how airline deregulation played a role in opening up his world — and getting him to Savannah, where he was inspired to write Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

This was always part of Skyjack’s mission. Airlines weren’t just transportation; they were identity, aspiration, escape and occasionally a rewarding (or challenging) career opportunity.

Believe it or not, there was a time before the Internet when people met and communicated through other channels. The Skyjack classifieds was one of them.

Issue 3 witnessed the gradual growth of this section. Before apps, before swipes, before algorithms deciding you liked men who owned cats and lived near airports — there were printed classifieds. They are charming, earnest, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious, a reminder that queer travel networking once depended on envelopes and stamps instead of profile photos and push notifications.

If Issue 1 showed a community forming and Issue 2 showed it growing, Issue 3 shows it interacting in real time (think: “land-based male looking for high-flying hunky pilot”).

So buckle up, return your seatback to its upright position, and enjoy Skyjack Magazine Issue 3 — a time capsule with a sense of humor.

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ABOUT MARK CHESNUT

Mark Chesnut is a New York City-based journalist, editor, travel industry consultant and public speaker with more than 30 years of experience. The winner of the 2019 NLGJA Excellence in Travel Writing Award, Mark is the author of the book Prepare for Departure. Follow him on Instagram!