By Alexandra Skores, CNN
(CNN) — Being a stewardess always had a certain glamour for Joan Prince Crandall.
It opened doors to new experiences and gave her a chance to fly all over the world and learn new things. She remembers the days of high heels and fashion while flying – much of which is absent today.
After more than 66 years, the memory of that glamour is why she’s still flying. Her employer, Delta Air Lines, believes she is the industry’s longest serving flight attendant – the title which replaced “stewardess” decades ago.
“That has been my career – from stewardess to flight attendant,” she told CNN in an interview.
Young Prince Crandall began her career at Pacific Airlines in 1959, which flew propeller planes like the Martin 404 and the Fairchild F-27. The first plane she worked on was a Douglas DC-3, a 24-passenger aircraft.
“The airlines wanted young women who had a glamourous look,” she said.
However, as technology has evolved, so has the profession: from the early days of fashion choices like go-go boots and emphasis on service, to a job critical to the safety of commercial airlines. Flight attendants, while still dressed appropriately and serving drinks and food to fliers, are also frontline employees during aviation incidents, ushering passengers out on slides or handling other emergency situations. That part of the job hasn’t changed since Prince Crandall started, but the number of passengers she’s responsible for has.
Over the decades, the companies she’s worked for have undergone mergers and consolidation. After Pacific came Air West, then Hughes Airwest, Republic Airways, NorthWest and finally, since 2008, Delta Air Lines.
Through it all, she kept flying and is now based in Washington state. But her successful career didn’t come without some challenges along the way.
A difficult start in a male dominated world
Being a young, working woman in the late 1950s and 1960s wasn’t easy.
Prince Crandall remembers much of the earliest days of flying fondly: the fashionable uniforms, the high-class service and the emphasis on safety.
However, at the time, stewardesses were also under intense scrutiny. Some airlines had weight and appearance policies, forced them to quit if they got married and mandated they retire at age 32.
Prince Crandall said she was aware of other airlines enforcing policies about appearance, but she never ran into those problems with her employers. However, she does remember the policies about marriage and age.
“In this day and age, (the policies) would have never happened,” she said.
For many young women, according to Prince Crandall, the profession was seen as a job you do “for about two years.” But many caught the aviation bug, like she did, and fought to keep working, gain seniority and enjoy everything the job offers.
The flight attendant profession dates back to the 1930s, when the first stewardesses – many of them nurses – were hired to assist passengers. Women were selected because they provided “a source of cheap labor,” according to the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. Today, the average flight attendant salary is approximately $70,980, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For Prince Crandall, the last sixty years have changed in many ways beyond money.
She remembers when her airline started buying new jets to replace the propeller aircraft with loud piston engines that were limited in speed, range and capacity.
“Higher, faster, smoother, more seats,” she exclaims, recalling the transition to jets with a big smile and fierce look in her eyes. She said she can still pic