Name: Lessons from 60 years as a flight attendant
Uploaded: 2024-05-29T01:30:58.000Z
Duration: 4 min 5 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

For nearly six decades, Betty Nash has been sharing her vibrant smile with the world, all from 30,000 feet.

At 80 years young, it's safe to say that she's seen it all and served them all.

Few people know more about the pace of change in travel than Betty, who's thought to be the world's oldest active flight attendant.

I wanted to be a flight attendant from the time I got on the first airplane.

I was 16 years old, the pilot and the flight attendant walked across the hall and I thought, oh my God, I said that was for me.

At the time, flying was a lavish experience.

It was a sophisticated party up in the air.

Today, glancing around the tightly packed plane, it's far from the white-gloved glamour of the golden years, yet Betty still loves it just as much as ever.

I love my people and I love being on the same flight all the time, that I know my customers, you know what they want.

The airline thinks names are important, but I think a lot of times people's needs are very important.

Disposed of anything or you need anything else?

Thank you for flying with us this morning.

After 59 years, there's still no stopping her.

I started with Eastern Airlines November the 4th, 1957 and the rest is history.

From the trips that I flew in the beginning, I flew these 13-hour days.

I remember going, you know, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami and I was the only one on the plane.

You worked harder physically in those days.

When she first flew, training was focused more on appearance.

People called it charm school in those days.

They took you to the beauty parlor and cut all your hair off.

You had to be a certain height and a certain weight and you were constantly being weighed.

And the outfits, as we saw at the Smithsonian, changed with the mood of each era.

The attire was, when I first started, was very conservative.

Then we started getting very, you know, out there in the world.

You know, we had the hot pants, the go-go boots, you know, a turtleneck shirt that came up to here and buttoned underneath.

After that, then things started calming down a little bit.

Yet nothing's changed more in the industry than technology.

When I first started flying, they would chalk everything up on a board.

There's very little left of the manual way of life.

Everything was on a piece of paper before and now everything is on a tablet.

Small handheld electronic devices may be used in the airplane mode.

Technology really made the difference of, am I going to stay or am I going to go?

And even when I think I might retire or something, then I come to work and I think, oh, I couldn't do that.

It's stimulating coming out here and even walking through the airport.

And I think you have to evolve with them.

And Betty's neither deterred nor threatened by it.

They'll never phase out a flight attendant because they need the human touch.