Come fly with us!

Come fly with us say Air Bahama girls with Irish touch!

The team from Aer Lingus who trained the Air Bahama 
hostesses l t r: Ann Boyle, Assistant Chief Hostess 
Atlantic, Marian McCreery, Hostess Training Officer, 
and Patricia Reynolds, Senior Hostess.

Irish passengers flying on the world´s newest airline - 
International Air Bahama - should not be too surprised 
if they get a "cead mile failte", a thousand million 
greetings, from any of the new hostesses. For the girls 
have just completed an Aer Lingus course similar to 
that given to Irish hostesses.

For the past month, (June 1968) International Air 
Bahama´s cosmopolitan collection of girls - 26 of them - 
have been at Dublin Airport learning the intricacies 
of their trade under the watchful eyes of Aer Lingus 
hostesses. 

Apart from their Irish training, Air Bahama´s girls have 
another link with this country. Their specially designed 
uniform is a mixture of green, white and orange, with a 
bare midriff and a cute strawhat to add the Bahamian 
touch.

The girls, from Luxembourg, Sweden, Holland, England and 
America, with one from Ireland, fly out this weekend to 
begin fly.

First time

The airline which goes into operation on July 20, 1968, 
will fly from Luxembourg to the Bahamas, stopping at 
Shannon en route. Supervising the girl´s training in 
Ireland is Miss Nettie Miller from America, chief 
hostess with International Air Bahama.

The fact that International Air Bahama sent its girls 
here to be trained Aer Lingus style is considered a 
tremendous prestige boost for the Irish airline. 
"Our company president Dick Lassiter picked Aer Lingus 
because the standard of its hostesses is rated so highly 
throughout the world," Miss Miller says.

This is the first time Aer Lingus have undertaken training 
such a large group of hostesses from one airline. 

Miss Miller says her company is already making plans to 
send more girls for training here. (Adela Adderley Osterloh, 
Karen Fawkes FoxLunn, Vernica Ferguson, Emily Williams 
and Maddie Johnson, Nassau, Bahamas).

 
My name is Hank Wasiniak and after very happily 
stumbling upon your website, I wanted to send these 
two photos in for your collection.  Although the 
date on the photos is March 1970, they were actually 
taken in August of 1969 in Luxembourg.  You will 
probably know who the hostess is in the photo. 

My mother and I are to her right. Although I was a 
boy in the photo, I went on to become a Flight 
Attendant for Pan Am not too many years later in 
1978, and stayed until its bankruptcy in 1991 at 
which point I went to Delta along with 2,000 of my 
colleagues.  I left Delta in 2004 and am now working 
as an instructor and supervisor of Initial Training 
for Flight Attendants at Southwest Airlines in Dallas, 
Texas. 

The photos were taken during a holiday we took to 
Germany to visit my mother’s family.  My parents have 
both passed on now and these photos bring back very 
happy memories.  I still remember how excited I was 
to fly on Air Bahama.  I hope you enjoy them and 
accept them with my best wishes. Perhaps you would 
like to pass this photo on to the hostess in the 
picture.

With kind regards, Hank Wasiniak