Meet the world’s longest serving flight attendant

Consistency and passion is the key. This is what the so-called “Queen of the skies” prove after giving 60 years of service in American Airlines.

With her age, the 81-year-old American Airlines flight attendant has no plans to retire just yet.

Bette Nash, 81, now considered as the world’s longest serving flight attendant, for flying six decades long in her American routes.

Even with her lengthy service, Nash still has impeccable style, incredible energy and a constant smile. She has lost only one thing: her anonymity.

Bette has been flying for six decades and at 81 has become a celebrity in her own right

In a dark suit accented by a colored scarf, with her hair in a bun, Nash lends herself to accolades and plays with the compliments.

She is the undisputed star of the Airbus jet, rather than the captain, who usually the center of attention in every flight.

In the United States, pilots must retire at 65 but there is no such restriction on commercial flight attendants, of whom Bette Nash is probably the world’s most senior.

“I start my day at 2:10 in the morning. I have two alarm clocks and when they go off I don’t lie there, I get up,” Nash says.

At her home in Virginia, bordering Washington, Nash prepares food for her only son, who is disabled, and who will be waiting for her return to solid ground.

Bette was 21 years old and Dwight Eisenhower was president when Eastern Air Lines recruited her as a ‘stewardess,’

Nash prefers the Washington-Boston-Washington route, on which she gets priority because of her incomparable seniority.

At that time, travel by air was the preserve of a certain elite.

“There were a lot of men because they were doing business, and women came on with their fur coats, and their finery and their hats and everything. You didn’t have… the flip-flops and the sneakers and things you do today,” Nash flashing back with her journey as flight attendant.

“When (president) John Kennedy came into office and everything, things started opening up, so we wore crazy uniforms. We even had hot pants for a brief period, and these boots,” the queen of the skies remembers.

As of posting, Nash has no plan yet to give up her long and untiring service in the airline.

She will celebrated her 82nd birthday this December 31.