Guinness recognizes 86-year-old Bette Nash as oldest and longest-serving Flight Attendant
At 86, American Airlines’ Bette Nash is recognized as the world’s oldest and longest-serving Flight Attendant, according to Guinness World Records.
Nash began flying in 1957 and will celebrate 65 years of flight this fall.
She can choose any route she wants and for most of her career she has been loyal to the New York-Washington-Boston service.
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Nash prefers this route because she says it allows her to be home every night with her disabled son, whom she continues to care for to this day.
When she started flying, she says passengers bought life insurance from a vending machine before boarding and the airline checked her at home to make sure she wasn’t living with a man because flight attendants had to be single. The airline also weighed her before shifts and could suspend her if she gained too much weight, Nash told ABC.
Nash began flying with Eastern Airlines, and through various mergers, including with Donald Trump’s airline in the late 1980s, she ended up with American Airlines.
Nash still attends regular flight attendant training under Federal Aviation Administration rules.
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