Abstract

PIGLIA, Melina. Technical Modernization and Aerial Workers. The Case of Commercial Aviation in Argentina in the 1960s. Hist. Soc. [online]. 2021, n.40, pp.63-88.  Epub Mar 08, 2021. ISSN 0121-8417.  https://doi.org/10.15446/hys.n40.86452.

Focusing on pilots and cabin crew, this article attempts to account for the transformations in their practices, affections and experiences vis à vis the renewal of the Argentine commercial aviation fleets in the 1960s. It is based on a corpus of interviews with air workers, documents of the airlines and press files. The modernization of the fleets forced the crews to go through new processes of training and qualifications. It provided relief from some physical efforts and resulted in a more comfortable work environment, but also increased work intensity. For the younger pilots and for the young crew members, it meant an extension of the space of personal autonomy; for the older pilots, although it implied objective improvements, it was also experienced as a contraction of the place they occupied in the social and affective configurations enabled by the smaller aircraft.

Keywords : civil aviation; technological change; workers; Argentina; the sixties.

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