Delta Flight Attendant Joan Prince Crandall Retires After 66 Years in the Air

7 articles · Updated · CNN · May 30

66 years after starting as a stewardess in 1959, Joan Prince Crandall is retiring from Delta, which says she is the airline industry's longest-serving flight attendant.
Crandall flew through multiple mergers—from Pacific Airlines to Delta—and watched the job shift from glamour-focused service on 24-seat prop planes to safety-critical work on jets carrying more than 300 passengers.
Her career also spanned an era when airlines could force women out for marriage, age or appearance, restrictions she said were transformed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act's ban on sex discrimination.
Delta recently paired Crandall with newly trained attendant Alise Broussard as a symbolic handoff, underscoring how the profession has changed while its core roles—safety and connecting passengers to the world—remain.
Now based in Washington state, Crandall plans to write a book and keep traveling, this time as a passenger rather than a purser.

As a 66-year veteran retires, are today's flight attendants truly safer from risks like severe turbulence?

What are the unspoken financial realities and physical tolls of a 66-year career spent flying above the clouds?