US Airways Flight Attendant Celebrates Golden Anniversary With 50 Years of Service
- Thread starter 2clippedwings
- Start date
LCC_#1
Veteran
OP
- Thread Starter
- #48
Bette was awarded USAirways Flight Attendant of the Year. Congratulations!
As an aside though,
She recently received an orchid letter for sending a first flight certificate and pair of wings to a couple with a young child.
Very nice of her to create the card (million milers, sound familiar?) and rustle up a set of wings since the company took those amenities away years ago.
From AFA:
**********************************************************************
***************************************
Bette is #1
Bette Nash - DCA - based Flight Attendant named
US Airways 2007 Flight Attendant of the Year!
Congratulations go to DCA-based Bette Nash! In 2007 has Bette not only celebrated her 50th year as a flight attendant in November, but she is now being named the Flight Attendant of the Year!! Talk about a double-header!! Add onto that the fact that Bette is number one on the seniority list for the entire flight attendant group and you have a true triple play!!!
Her history as a flight attendant is just as rich and compelling as that of the airline industry. Bette is our "diamond in the sky" says Sherri Shamblin, Vice President of InFlight Services. She has "frozen time" in her suitcase, which includes the memorabilia she has collected over her 50+ years as a flight attendant, pill-box hats, gloves, old uniforms and a scrap book of memories.
But Bette hasn’t always just collected memories, she has made memories for many of our customers. She has received numerous letters during her career from our customers thanking her for her dedication and friendly, helpful service. We recently received a letter that was written by the CEO & President of the Atlantic Council stating that Bette had gone the extra mile and sent him and his wife a First Flight Certificate and a pair of wings for his six-day old baby which brought tears to their eyes.
Bette has commented several times that our customers’ needs have not changed since she began flying in 1957. "Our customers just want to be cared for and loved a little bit"!
Bette began flying for Eastern Airlines when flying was quite a different experience from today. Customers paid $12 for a one-way fare, flew on airplanes called "Connies" (a common term for the Lockheed Constellation with the distinct three fin tail configuration), and wore pill-box hats and gloves.
In 1961, she started flying the Eastern Airlines Shuttle where she made her home. The shuttle name might have changed a few times over the years (Eastern, Trump, US Air and finally, the US Airways Shuttle), but two things haven’t changed...Bette’s commitment and her professionalism towards her career in the airline industry.
Bette was honored this past August as Flight Attendant of the Month by setting high standards for herself as well as achieving perfect attendance many times throughout her career. Even though her history is rich and long, Bette treats each day as a new beginning.
She is described by her co-workers and customers as a very kind, giving person that is always willing to go above and beyond to ensure her customers return to US Airways again and again.
Outside of the work environment, Bette doesn’t slow down either! She was recently recognized by the Virginian Senior Citizens home after volunteering to participate in an in-house interview in the television studio regarding her 50 year airline career.
Thank you Bette for your outstanding service to US Airways and for being an excellent example to our flight attendants to achieve the high standards that you have set over the last 50 years!
**********************************************************************
*****************************************
As an aside though,
She recently received an orchid letter for sending a first flight certificate and pair of wings to a couple with a young child.
Very nice of her to create the card (million milers, sound familiar?) and rustle up a set of wings since the company took those amenities away years ago.
From AFA:
**********************************************************************
***************************************
Bette is #1
Bette Nash - DCA - based Flight Attendant named
US Airways 2007 Flight Attendant of the Year!
Congratulations go to DCA-based Bette Nash! In 2007 has Bette not only celebrated her 50th year as a flight attendant in November, but she is now being named the Flight Attendant of the Year!! Talk about a double-header!! Add onto that the fact that Bette is number one on the seniority list for the entire flight attendant group and you have a true triple play!!!
Her history as a flight attendant is just as rich and compelling as that of the airline industry. Bette is our "diamond in the sky" says Sherri Shamblin, Vice President of InFlight Services. She has "frozen time" in her suitcase, which includes the memorabilia she has collected over her 50+ years as a flight attendant, pill-box hats, gloves, old uniforms and a scrap book of memories.
But Bette hasn’t always just collected memories, she has made memories for many of our customers. She has received numerous letters during her career from our customers thanking her for her dedication and friendly, helpful service. We recently received a letter that was written by the CEO & President of the Atlantic Council stating that Bette had gone the extra mile and sent him and his wife a First Flight Certificate and a pair of wings for his six-day old baby which brought tears to their eyes.
Bette has commented several times that our customers’ needs have not changed since she began flying in 1957. "Our customers just want to be cared for and loved a little bit"!
Bette began flying for Eastern Airlines when flying was quite a different experience from today. Customers paid $12 for a one-way fare, flew on airplanes called "Connies" (a common term for the Lockheed Constellation with the distinct three fin tail configuration), and wore pill-box hats and gloves.
In 1961, she started flying the Eastern Airlines Shuttle where she made her home. The shuttle name might have changed a few times over the years (Eastern, Trump, US Air and finally, the US Airways Shuttle), but two things haven’t changed...Bette’s commitment and her professionalism towards her career in the airline industry.
Bette was honored this past August as Flight Attendant of the Month by setting high standards for herself as well as achieving perfect attendance many times throughout her career. Even though her history is rich and long, Bette treats each day as a new beginning.
She is described by her co-workers and customers as a very kind, giving person that is always willing to go above and beyond to ensure her customers return to US Airways again and again.
Outside of the work environment, Bette doesn’t slow down either! She was recently recognized by the Virginian Senior Citizens home after volunteering to participate in an in-house interview in the television studio regarding her 50 year airline career.
Thank you Bette for your outstanding service to US Airways and for being an excellent example to our flight attendants to achieve the high standards that you have set over the last 50 years!
**********************************************************************
*****************************************
N903AW
Veteran
USCREW
Veteran
Gloria will die of envy.
How many parties and celebrations can Betty handle in one year?
View attachment 7404
I am honored to fly the Shuttle with Bette.
How many parties and celebrations can Betty handle in one year?
View attachment 7404
I am honored to fly the Shuttle with Bette.
N903AW
Veteran
The Eastern strike (Pilots, Flight Attendants and Mechanics) began on March 4, 1989. The sale of the shuttle to Donald Trump did not occur until June 7, 1989.
WOW, she doesn't look old enough to be celebrating a 50th anniversary! I hope I can look so young as I get older... She looks like a really nice person. Congratulations to her!
N965VJ
Veteran
EyeInTheSky
Veteran
A big article was done on her in the PIT paper in November
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07329/836333-407.stm
Flight attendant marks 50 years in her dream job
Sunday, November 25, 2007
By Joyce Gannon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Bette Nash, US Airways flight attendant who just celebrated 50 years of service with the airline.It took place 55 years ago, but Bette Nash clearly recalls the details of her first flight: She was 16, in dress attire like all travelers of that era, and accompanying her mother on All-American Airways from New Jersey to Dayton, Ohio. They stopped in Washington, D.C., to switch planes and flew on TWA for the last leg of the trip.
Not only is it memorable because it was the first time she boarded an airplane, that journey inspired Ms. Nash to become a flight attendant -- her dream job that she's been doing for half a century now.
"From the moment I took that first trip I wanted to be a stewardess," said Ms. Nash, using the term that has since gone the way of the white gloves and pillbox hats that once were part of her uniform.
Earlier this month, Ms. Nash, 71, celebrated 50 years on the job. She remains Number One on the seniority list among all US Airways' flight attendants and is based in Washington, D.C., where she still flies regularly on the US Airways Shuttle that makes several round trips a day between Washington and New York.
"We've got the creme of the world on our shuttle," she says of the passengers, many of whom are political and business power-brokers who fly frequently between the two cities. "These people ask for little. Maybe just milk in their coffee."
After 50 years of serving up coffee -- as well as cocktails and meals in the days before airlines eliminated most food service -- Ms. Nash acknowledged that while technology and world events have drastically altered the airline industry, the core of her job remains pretty much unchanged: "People's needs are the same. They just want to be cared for and loved a little bit."
Changing demographics
Ms. Nash is one of five flight attendants hired in the 1950s who still are on the job at various airlines, according to the Association of Flight Attendants, the union that has represented them since 1945. One of the 70-somethings announced plans to retire at the end of this month from Aloha Airlines but the others have not given any hints they're ready to stop working, said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the AFA in Washington.
While most flight attendants don't work past age 60, their average age has skewed older in recent years, flying in the face of the long-held stereotype of pretty, young stewardesses mingling in the air with a cabin full of businessmen.
Of the AFA's current membership of 55,000, the majority, or 39 percent, are ages 31 to 40; 33 percent fall between ages 41 and 50; and 23 percent are 51 to 60 years old.
The AFA doesn't keep statistics on the percentage of men vs. women in their ranks, "But we know that gap has closed and is more equal than in the past," said Ms. Caldwell.
There are a couple of reasons the average age has increased since Ms. Nash started flying in 1957.
After the federal Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, the airlines could no longer discriminate against workers because of age, marital status or pregnancy. So female flight attendants kept working when they got married and had children, turning their jobs into long-term careers.
More recently, the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the subsequent financial woes that hit the airlines forced carriers to slash thousands of jobs and they have been slow to rehire younger flight attendants.
"There's been no infusion since 9/11," said Ms. Caldwell.
Getting her start
Ms. Nash always envisioned her job as a lifetime calling.
Growing up outside of Atlantic City, N.J., she worked summers at boardwalk shops and in hotels and studied business at Sacred Heart College in North Carolina.
After college she took a job as a legal secretary to earn money while she applied to the airlines. "But I think I was a decoration in the office."
As soon as Eastern Airlines called, she joined the carrier in Miami, where flight crews signed in with paper and pencil, not computer, when they arrived at the terminal that back then was not air-conditioned.
In 1961, she transferred to Washington to work on the Eastern shuttle and other flights. She remained with the shuttle through its sale to real estate magnate Donald Trump and later, to US Airways. In a sense, that transaction brought Ms. Nash's career full circle because the airline on which she took her first plane ride, All-American, was a predecessor of Allegheny Airlines, which eventually became US Airways.
She flies out of both Washington Dulles International and Ronald Reagan Washington National airports but prefers the shuttle trips out of Reagan National because they allow her to start and finish the workday at her home in Manassas, Va.
Her adult son is disabled, "So I want to be home at night."
Transitions
While much of the flying public has gone casual, many shuttle passengers still show up business attire because they head to meetings and offices as soon as they land in New York or Washington.
"You'll never see as many nice ties. These people have the finest," she said of the ambassadors, broadcast journalists and Supreme Court justices who regularly commute on the shuttle.
Besides observing drastic changes in passenger fashion over the years, Ms. Nash has experienced some interesting transitions in her own dress code. Even after female flight attendants started wearing pants suits for work in the 1970s, the airlines didn't want them donning pants for leisure travel.
"I went to the airport once in a nice, brown, wool pants suit. I was on my pass and couldn't fly."
She also recalls when first-class and coach travelers were split between different airplanes.
"If you were a tourist, you were on another plane. And there were no jet engines then. They were all propeller driven."
Ms. Nash was waiting on standby for a shuttle flight on the morning of 9/11 when terrorists crashed four airplanes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
"We were evacuated from the airport, went out front and saw the smoke from the Pentagon."
She and a friend hopped on an already-jammed bus to the parking lot and drove home on back roads to avoid the congested highways around Washington.
Still, she never thought about quitting her job.
"I went back to work as soon as the airports reopened. I flew out of Dulles and was not the least bit concerned. You're safer now than you ever were."
She has no plans to retire, either. "I'm very happy to be here at my age. The airlines have given me a nice home, a nice life ... a life where I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I'm happy to go to work."
Though her employee pass enables her to travel far and wide, Ms. Nash isn't that anxious to explore new destinations.
"My favorite place? Coming home. I recently went to Las Vegas and had a wonderful time. But I'm not one for layovers."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07329/836333-407.stm
Flight attendant marks 50 years in her dream job
Sunday, November 25, 2007
By Joyce Gannon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Bette Nash, US Airways flight attendant who just celebrated 50 years of service with the airline.It took place 55 years ago, but Bette Nash clearly recalls the details of her first flight: She was 16, in dress attire like all travelers of that era, and accompanying her mother on All-American Airways from New Jersey to Dayton, Ohio. They stopped in Washington, D.C., to switch planes and flew on TWA for the last leg of the trip.
Not only is it memorable because it was the first time she boarded an airplane, that journey inspired Ms. Nash to become a flight attendant -- her dream job that she's been doing for half a century now.
"From the moment I took that first trip I wanted to be a stewardess," said Ms. Nash, using the term that has since gone the way of the white gloves and pillbox hats that once were part of her uniform.
Earlier this month, Ms. Nash, 71, celebrated 50 years on the job. She remains Number One on the seniority list among all US Airways' flight attendants and is based in Washington, D.C., where she still flies regularly on the US Airways Shuttle that makes several round trips a day between Washington and New York.
"We've got the creme of the world on our shuttle," she says of the passengers, many of whom are political and business power-brokers who fly frequently between the two cities. "These people ask for little. Maybe just milk in their coffee."
After 50 years of serving up coffee -- as well as cocktails and meals in the days before airlines eliminated most food service -- Ms. Nash acknowledged that while technology and world events have drastically altered the airline industry, the core of her job remains pretty much unchanged: "People's needs are the same. They just want to be cared for and loved a little bit."
Changing demographics
Ms. Nash is one of five flight attendants hired in the 1950s who still are on the job at various airlines, according to the Association of Flight Attendants, the union that has represented them since 1945. One of the 70-somethings announced plans to retire at the end of this month from Aloha Airlines but the others have not given any hints they're ready to stop working, said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the AFA in Washington.
While most flight attendants don't work past age 60, their average age has skewed older in recent years, flying in the face of the long-held stereotype of pretty, young stewardesses mingling in the air with a cabin full of businessmen.
Of the AFA's current membership of 55,000, the majority, or 39 percent, are ages 31 to 40; 33 percent fall between ages 41 and 50; and 23 percent are 51 to 60 years old.
The AFA doesn't keep statistics on the percentage of men vs. women in their ranks, "But we know that gap has closed and is more equal than in the past," said Ms. Caldwell.
There are a couple of reasons the average age has increased since Ms. Nash started flying in 1957.
After the federal Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, the airlines could no longer discriminate against workers because of age, marital status or pregnancy. So female flight attendants kept working when they got married and had children, turning their jobs into long-term careers.
More recently, the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the subsequent financial woes that hit the airlines forced carriers to slash thousands of jobs and they have been slow to rehire younger flight attendants.
"There's been no infusion since 9/11," said Ms. Caldwell.
Getting her start
Ms. Nash always envisioned her job as a lifetime calling.
Growing up outside of Atlantic City, N.J., she worked summers at boardwalk shops and in hotels and studied business at Sacred Heart College in North Carolina.
After college she took a job as a legal secretary to earn money while she applied to the airlines. "But I think I was a decoration in the office."
As soon as Eastern Airlines called, she joined the carrier in Miami, where flight crews signed in with paper and pencil, not computer, when they arrived at the terminal that back then was not air-conditioned.
In 1961, she transferred to Washington to work on the Eastern shuttle and other flights. She remained with the shuttle through its sale to real estate magnate Donald Trump and later, to US Airways. In a sense, that transaction brought Ms. Nash's career full circle because the airline on which she took her first plane ride, All-American, was a predecessor of Allegheny Airlines, which eventually became US Airways.
She flies out of both Washington Dulles International and Ronald Reagan Washington National airports but prefers the shuttle trips out of Reagan National because they allow her to start and finish the workday at her home in Manassas, Va.
Her adult son is disabled, "So I want to be home at night."
Transitions
While much of the flying public has gone casual, many shuttle passengers still show up business attire because they head to meetings and offices as soon as they land in New York or Washington.
"You'll never see as many nice ties. These people have the finest," she said of the ambassadors, broadcast journalists and Supreme Court justices who regularly commute on the shuttle.
Besides observing drastic changes in passenger fashion over the years, Ms. Nash has experienced some interesting transitions in her own dress code. Even after female flight attendants started wearing pants suits for work in the 1970s, the airlines didn't want them donning pants for leisure travel.
"I went to the airport once in a nice, brown, wool pants suit. I was on my pass and couldn't fly."
She also recalls when first-class and coach travelers were split between different airplanes.
"If you were a tourist, you were on another plane. And there were no jet engines then. They were all propeller driven."
Ms. Nash was waiting on standby for a shuttle flight on the morning of 9/11 when terrorists crashed four airplanes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
"We were evacuated from the airport, went out front and saw the smoke from the Pentagon."
She and a friend hopped on an already-jammed bus to the parking lot and drove home on back roads to avoid the congested highways around Washington.
Still, she never thought about quitting her job.
"I went back to work as soon as the airports reopened. I flew out of Dulles and was not the least bit concerned. You're safer now than you ever were."
She has no plans to retire, either. "I'm very happy to be here at my age. The airlines have given me a nice home, a nice life ... a life where I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I'm happy to go to work."
Though her employee pass enables her to travel far and wide, Ms. Nash isn't that anxious to explore new destinations.
"My favorite place? Coming home. I recently went to Las Vegas and had a wonderful time. But I'm not one for layovers."
USCREW
Veteran
OTslave
Advanced
- May 24, 2005
- 201
- 1
Wrong. It was sold after. I was there and had, as a non union person to work it during the strike.
EyeInTheSky
Veteran
Similar threads
