'Fly Girls' plays into airline stereotypes

"Fly Girls" should have been grounded before take-off.

"Fly Girls" is a new reality series about five single female flight attendants who work for Virgin America.

They travel to exotic locales. They share a posh "crash pad" in Marina del Rey, Calif. They have romances, get in catty squabbles, go to lavish parties and deal with boorish passengers.

The producers claim it's all real, but it looks like a contrived fantasy.

After years of trying to get past the swinging stewardess stereotyping, flight attendants will be losing any dignity that was gained if "Fly Girls" becomes a hit.

The first of eight half-hour episodes begins at 9 tonight on The CW.

Viewers will meet Farrah, 33, a tall blonde who loves to party; Nikole, 31, a high-maintenance drama queen; Tasha, 28, a single mom who shares custody of a young son; Louise, 28, who is on the rebound from a busted relationship; and Mandala, 26, the short, seemingly naive fly girl who actually is a dynamo.

We also learn that "IFB" in fly girl lingo is code for "in-flight boyfriend," or a guy one meets on the job who becomes a date.

At times the series plays like an infomercial for Richard Branson's airline. Sir Richard even makes cameo appearances.

In addition to being flight attendants, the five are on the airline's promotional team, which means they attend corporate events as window dressing and say things such as: "When we put on our uniforms, the world is our playground."

But the job is not without strife because passengers can be a pain. A turn-off for Mandala: flyers with smelly bare feet. Farrah gripes about a guy who wants to spit gum in her hand. All of them bemoan getting hit on by jerks because the sexy stewardess fantasy lives on.

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