In the mid-1970s, flight attendants at Pan American Airways (PAA) became dissatisfied with both their working conditions and their representation by the Transport Workers Union of America. In 1976, the flight attendants voted to decertify the TWU and form a new union, the Independent Union of Flight Attendants. Mary Ellen King served as the union's first president, and Alice Flynn as its vice president. Star Hesse, a flight attendant, got involved with IUFA in the late 1970s and became a section chairperson, negotiating contracts for the IUFA. In 1985, the flight attendants narrowly averted a walkout in support of striking TWU members. The IUFA dissolved when Pan American Airlines folded in 1991.

Issues of intense concern to the flight attendants, as reflected in their bargaining and grievance files and newsletters, were scheduling and seniority, overtime work, regulations on appearance and personal behavior and in-flight working conditions.