Who won that war, anyhow?

This is an advertisement for VietJet, a budget airline based in Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City. Uncle Ho would be surprised by that, and likewise by the fact that the airline's founder, Nguyen Thi Phuong, has become Vietnam's first female billionaire. VietJet recently surpassed state-owned Vietnam Airlines in that most capitalistic of measures, stock market value.

When I flew into Saigon in May 1964, it was on a flight operated by Pan American Airlines, a company that no longer has any market value whatever. And my flights in and around the country were on Huey helicopters, a Fairchild C-123, and a single-engine De Havilland Otter. None of them had flight attendants like this!