FlyingLion

"I love my people. I know my customers. I know what they want. The airline thinks names are important, but I think people's needs are very important. Everybody wants a little love,"

I love this FA!

Thank you for sharing a story.

JBD

Thanks for posting this!

I have some bookmarks on this wonderful person if anyone's interested:

From One Mile at a Time, May 2016 (and linked on it is a previous post and on that is linked a Boston Globe article from 2014):
The World’s Most Senior Flight Attendant Is Still Going Strong!

And on Loyalty Lobby, May 2016, which links to another CNN video
Happy Birthday: The Worlds Oldest Flight Attendant is 80 Years Of Age And Works For American Airlines

And on the same general topic of long serving FAs, I also have this bookmark, a Dallas News article from 2013 about an AA FA named Carole DiSalvo, who retired after 54 years:
Flight attendant grounds herself after 54 years with American Airlines

Silverelf

I think it's really sweet that flight attendants are allowed to fly as long as they want. Not all airlines allow that, I reckon.

ehallison

I answered that in the very post you quoted, but you left out that part:

An aircraft door seems like it *should* be quite heavy. That's why I wonder. I've always wondered how the average middle-age passenger could handle it, much less a very petite 78yo.

JDiver

In the United States of America, it's Federal law. In countries that legally allow discrimination, they may be, and often are, severed for reasons unrelated to their job, such as age, marital status, physical appearance including weight, etc.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, ended airline rules that allowed them to sever personnel for gender, pregnancy or marital status, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects employees 40 years of age or older from being severed merely because of age. (Though commercial airline pilots flying passenger services are mandatorily retired at age 65 - an increase from the recent 60 year deadline, and they can still fly beyond that if flying cargo, etc.)

U.S. law requires qualified FAs be allowed to continue in their positions as long as they can fulfill the "BFOQ" - bona fide occupational qualifications for their specific job. Flight attendants are tested annually on issues such as opening emergency exits, evacuating aircraft within the time limit, etc. by FAR; they are required to demonstrate they can fulfill their job duties. If they can not do so, they are prohibited from serving as air crew by Federal law.

pharmalady

Most likely a Dallas gal! 4'11" with hair wet, 6'2" with hairdo. And I'm allowed to say that. I'm a fellow Texas old gal.

northwesterner

There's a little blurb about Bette Nash in this month's American Way, in the section about "50 Years of American Way."

Of course, they spelled her name Betty, twice.

"I don't get no respect..."

Herf

We flew with her and her senior crew on the shuttle this weekend. The FA on her way to work that sat next to us was the junior FA on the plane. Only 47 years on the job.

ILuvParis

Nice story on Betty Nash on the CBS Evening News tonight. 60 years in the air - from Eastern to Trump Shuttle to US Air to American! 82 and no plans to retire. Congratulations!

matrixwalker2012

generally it would be the FA’s who have been there a long time but aren’t able to retire yet that may lose interest in their jobs and just want to count down the days to retirement.

If a FA is well past retirement eligible age and chooses to continue to work, it’s likely that they just really enjoy their job and don’t want to walk away. I think one elderly FA at UA uses his seniority and job to choose a route that essentially pays him to commute between two places he likes to go.

I hope that when I’m past retirement age that I can be at a job that I just love to do and want to keep going because of the joy it would bring me.

ILuvParis

I've never had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Nash. It seems from what I saw this evening that she loves her passengers and the feeling seems to be mutual.

JY1024

I think I last crossed paths with her last year or earlier this year. A South American TV crew was following her around on-board, as they were also doing a piece on her. When the TV crew started to get in her way, she would politely nudge them back to their seats and let them know that she needed to take care of her passengers in F first before she could chat with them. A wonderful lady indeed and still going strong!

Earlier this year, my mother was flying DCA-BOS and told me she had a wonderfully attentive and nice FA in F. I sent along a Bette Nash article to my mom, and she said "Yup - that's her!"

LtKernelPanic

I was looking on AA's site a few days ago and saw this rather nice article about her. She celebrated 60 years with AA (and its predecessors) on November 3rd.

http://news.aa.com/press-releases/pr...e/default.aspx

matrixwalker2012

Around the time of the UACO merger, I flew with a super senior crew of FA’s that seemed to average 70 years of age and I asked them how the merger was going for them and they simply said that with their seniority, they could fly wherever they wanted to and since they were way past retirement age, if it got bad enough, they would simply retire and go do other stuff. The merger mess didn’t seem to phase them one but.