American Airlines longest-serving flight attendant retires

MIAMI (WSVN) -- After 52 years and more than 8,000 flights, American Airlines' longest-serving flight attendant embarked on her final flight before retirement, Monday.

Friends, colleagues and airline representatives joined Barbara Beckett at a boarding gate at Miami International Airport to see the Miami-based employee off on her last trip and share stories from her five-decade career. "It's something I always wanted to do, from the time I was very young," Beckett said as she prepared to fly out to London's Heathrow Airport and back.

The veteran flight attendant revealed that the moment she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up was connected to her longtime employer. "My parents took me to the airport in Baltimore, and I saw the stewardesses coming off the airplane, and I thought, 'I would really like to do that, they're absolutely beautiful.' It was an American Airlines flight," she said.

Beckett graduated from training on July 29, 1960 and has worked for American Airlines ever since.

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