86-year-old woman named world’s longest-serving flight attendant
Written by Angie Sharma on July 5, 2022
A Boston woman who has been working on planes for 65 years was named the world’s longest-serving flight attendant by Guinness World Records.
Bette Nash, 86, started working as a flight attendant in 1957 for Eastern Airlines and continues to this day at American Airlines without any lapse in employment, Guinness World Records confirmed.
Nash said she has spent most of her career working on the New York-Boston-Washington shuttle because it allows her to return home at night to care for her son, who has disabilities.
Guinness said Nash is also the oldest currently serving flight attendant in the world.
Nash said in 2017, when she celebrated her 60th anniversary with the company, that the job has changed considerably since the early days.
“You had to be a certain height, you had to be a certain weight. It used to be horrible. You put on a few pounds and you had to keep weighing yourself, and then if you stayed that way, they would take you off the payroll,” she told WJLA-TV.
