Memories abound for 98 year-old former flight attendant who worked on Boeing's first modern airliner!



SEATTLE - This weekend, Boeing is celebrating at Seattle's Museum of Flight to mark 100 years in business! One of the centerpieces is the Boeing 247;  a plane the museum has spent months restoring, and just brought to the grounds in the spring.

"It's regarded as... the first modern airliner," Ted Huetter says. The PR rep with the Museum says it truly changed travel when it first emerged in the 1930's. "You could fly across the country in something like 19 and a half hours; but at that time in the early 1930's, the only other way people were getting across the country was probably by train, and it would take several days."

The plane seated around ten passengers, and the only crew on board was the captain, co-pilot; and one flight attendant. Margaret Keating worked as a flight attendant on the 247 back in the early 1940's! Now 98 years old, the Mercer Island resident recalls just how different flying was back then: "We were there to make the coffee and hand out the Chiclets and the cigarettes- and take care of air sick people!" she says with a laugh. She tells me air sickness was much more common in those days, as planes weren't able to fly much higher than 10,000 feet; so you didn't go around storms- you went through them.

In those days, you had to be a nurse in order to be a flight attendant. Margaret tells us she became a nurse specifically to fly. "It was glamorous in those days," she tells us. "You know, the thought of flying and having that uniform... it was really an exciting thing for us."

The job and the qualifications were also different: she says they didn't do safety demonstrations, and the training focused solely on service. The requirements were strict: you had to be between 5 foot 1 and 5 foot 6 inches tall, no more than 125 pounds- and you had to quit once you got married!

Margaret still has such fond memories of those days, and tells us the best part was working with the passengers.

Watch the video above for the full story! The Boeing 247 is on display at Seattle's Museum of Flight even after the Boeing celebration, so check it out and click HERE for visiting hours and info. (They are closed to the public the weekend of July 15th for the Boeing event, but the 247 will still be on display throughout the summer and beyond!)