When Frank Sinatra recorded his song "Come Fly With Me" in 1958, commercial passenger air traffic in the United States was booming. Increasing numbers of travelers chose the air plane as their mode of transportation for long distance travel and "float[ed] down to Peru" and "Acapulco Bay" for drinks or to honeymoon, as Sinatra suggested. They did so because air travel was fast, convenient, and increasingly affordable for tourists and business travelers alike; but also because participation in "jet set" culture seemed desirable and chic.

Anke Ortlepp's book project explores the cultures of air travel in postwar America by looking at the ways in which traveling by airplane came to stand for a new way of living that an increasing number of Americans came to participate in. Air travel, in this context, is conceived as a cultural practice, a system of cultural meanings that influenced people’s behavior and that in turn was transformed by them. The project focuses on the years between 1945 and 1991 when air travel was transformed from a mode of travel for the elite into a means of mass transportation. During these years, it is argued, Americans created a distinct "travel culture" that both business and pleasure travelers participated in.