Question: I may have missed this, but why does Frank tear the labels off bottles?
Answer: He does it so he will have things in his wallet. As he has no identity of his own and steals or creates others, filling his wallet with labels is fulfilling a subconscious desire to be normal and have an identity.
Question: After Frank is essentially forced to abandon Brenda in order to avoid not getting caught at the airport he resumes his farce as a pilot and recruits young women as his accompanying stewardesses. Roughly how long does this thing with the stewardesses possibly last? Did he really risk to include them in his "trip" around the world to various countries to continue his fraud because obviously he abandoned them at some point and ended up in France where he was caught.
Answer: It lasts several months. The stewardesses were juniors and seniors from the University of Arizona, whom he fake-recruited for a PR project for Pan-Am (they were not supposed to be real stewardesses, but dress like them and be photographed in various European capitols). Frank was frequently being asked where his "crew" was, so he thought it would lend him credibility.
This is inaccurate. When he leaves Brenda, he calls the university immediately and says that he will be stopping by the next morning, and we see that they return to Miami International Airport. So, it was definitely not the University of Arizona. And I don't recall anyone asking Frank where his crew was; the question he got was what kind of equipment he was on. As far as the ladies are concerned, he likely left them right there in Miami. Much easier to keep a low profile on his own.
Answer: He was taking the labels off the bottles to make fake checks, using the logos as this is the one thing that he could not create on the checks. The MICR printer was only used to print the routing and account numbers and the emboss the checks.
This is incorrect. Frank exclusively makes Pan Am checks until his arrest in France. A logo from a ketchup bottle or peanut butter jar would be far too large for a check. Instead, as shown, Carl examines Frank's wallet, which is filled with labels taken from various items—supporting the more accurate explanation provided in the other answer.
jshy7979