63 Years Flying, From Glamour to Days of Gray

Ron Akana has the title of longest- serving flight attendant in the United States. Mr. Akana has worked as a flight attendant for 63 years, clocking some 20 million miles along the way, the equivalent of circling the globe about 800 times or flying roughly 40 times to the moon and back.
"people keep on telling me to apply to the Guinness Book of records," he said. " I'll let somebody else do that."
Mr. Akana is 83 years old and has just about seen it all. more than 40 percent of the roughly 110,000 flight attendants in the United States are 50 or older, according to an analysis of 2010 census data by Rogelio Saenz, a sociologist at the University of Texas, San Antonio, who has studied the changing demographics of flight attendants. Less than 18 percent are 34 or younger.

  At one time, just after he turned 70, Mr. Akana was among the highest-paid flight attendants at the airline, earning $106,000 a year through a combination of pay, pension and Social Security , a situation that has earned him a “triple dipper” label by younger colleagues and airline bookkeepers.
 “When I fly, it’s vacation money,” Mr. Akana likes to joke. But after flying for so many years, the idea of hanging up his sparkling wings is hard for him to fathom. He added that he would miss the people he works with, the passengers he meets and the routine he goes through for every trip, laying out his uniform and packing the night before. But now he has to say good bye, and he will be miss.

*http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/us/63-years-flying-from-glamour-to-days-of-gray.html?_r=1&ref=us