Honolulu-born Ron Akana, now in his 63rd year with United Airlines, is believed to be the longest-serving flight attendant in the United States.

The 83-year-old Akana began flying in 1949 when it took 10 hours for a United prop plane to reach the West Coast from Hawaii, there were only 55 passengers on a flight and smoking was considered the norm.

Akana, who spent most of his career flying 80 to 90 hours a month, is now down to just 40 hours and — being No. 1 on the seniority list — gets whatever routes he wants.

"If I fly a couple of trips a month, it makes life a little more interesting," Akana said.

He also likes the fringe benefits.

"For someone not to take advantage of the privileges of flying anywhere for next to nothing and, on top of that, to take your family with them, it’s hard to put a price on it," Akana said.

Last week Akana, who now lives in Boulder, Colo., made use of his travel pass to attend a friend’s wedding on Maui and enjoy a little free time in Waikiki.

To be sure, it takes a fairly fit 83-year-old to make it as a flight attendant.

"I can still handle all the baggage," Akana said. "I have a technique for putting them in the overhead bins, and I can do it efficiently. Physically, I’m in pretty good shape. I spent a lot of time in the ocean when I lived here (in Hawaii)."

Akana’s ties to Hawaii run deep. He lived here for 74 years and grew up in Kapalama Heights, attending ‘Iolani School — when it was in Nuuanu — and Kamehameha Schools.

He witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor, met his wife of 48 years on Waikiki Beach and raised his two children here. His son John, 45, a sports equipment sales representative, lives in Niu Valley with his wife and their three daughters.

Akana, who is roughly one-third Hawaiian, Chinese and English, has vivid memories of the Japanese invasion on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, when he was a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Kamehameha.

"On Sunday mornings we’d have breakfast at 7, which we did, and I guess about 7:30 the radios started picking up activities over Pearl Harbor," he recalled. "We crawled out to the roofs of our dormitories, and it was just very vivid. As the crow flies, we were about four to five miles from our dormitory room to Pearl Harbor, and we had an unobstructed view.

"It was very spectacular, and everything you’ve seen in the news, movies and videos is just what we saw. We could watch the dogfights as they occurred and the dive bombers going down. It was very vivid and hard to forget it."

Likewise, Akana has witnessed aviation history since being hired as one of the first eight male stewards at United.

Then-United Airlines President and co-founder Pat Patterson, who had been raised on a Waipahu sugar plantation, wanted to hire eight Hawaiian stewards to represent the eight Hawaiian islands and be the airline’s first male flight attendants. Akana, who was in his third year at the time at the University of Hawaii, jumped at the chance. He was chosen among 400 applicants and was 21 when he began his flying career.

Akana, who is 13 years older than his wife, Betsy, was introduced to her when they both were flight attendants.

"A United person who introduced us sent him to me via phone, and I said to meet me on Waikiki Beach," Betsy recalls. "I said ‘I’m a blonde with a two-piece bathing suit.’ At the same time he met my mother and father and my roommate and her mother and father. So he got the full treatment right away."

When they got married six months later in 1963, she had to quit her flight attendant job because female flight attendants at that time were not allowed to be married. She transferred into reservations for a year before quitting after getting pregnant with their first child.

The Akanas decided to move to Boulder from Kaneohe in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when they were stuck in Hawaii for five days and no planes were allowed in or out of the islands.

"I told my husband I need to go back to the mainland so that if anything happens to Jean (their daughter and also a United flight attendant), I need to be there for her family," Betsy said.

As the airline’s most senior flight attendant, Akana can fly anywhere and pick the routes he likes. He typically flies from Denver to Honolulu, Kauai, Maui or Kona.

"We usually arrive in the afternoon around 3 or 4 o’clock, so that gives us a full evening for cocktails and dinner, and then the whole day the next day because we usually have a 28-hour layover," he said.

Sometimes he does the Denver-Houston-Peru jaunt because it’s "a fun place to visit" and there’s a 29-hour layover.

Akana became the longest-serving flight attendant when Iris Peterson retired from United five years ago at age 85 after flying for 60 years.

Still, Akana is not the oldest. That distinction goes to Delta Air Lines flight attendant Bob Reardon, who has been flying for 60 years and is 87.

Akana’s daughter Jean, 47, who has worked with her dad a few times, said he "really raises the bar."

"He makes me appreciate the job that we have, and still, to this day, he cares about the service that we give and is always putting the passengers and their comfort first," said Jean, who is in her 23rd year as a flight attendant.

Akana said he worked at United for 10 years before he ever made as much as $3,000. When he was about 70, he was earning $106,000 to $110,000 a year because he also was drawing his pension and Social Security. He makes less now because of his reduced hours.

As much as he’s enjoyed the ride, Akana said he’s taking a close look at retirement now in light of a "substantial" buyout that is available in the new union contract that resulted from the 2010 merger of United and Continental airlines. He said he might turn in his wings before his 84th birthday in September.

"It’s reasonable for an 83-year-old to think about (retirement)," he said.

Akana and his wife own a recreational vehicle, and he said they plan to drive around the country and visit national parks on both coasts.

"Those kinds of things have to be appreciated," he said.

Akana said he feels blessed how things have worked out.

"It’s like that saying where you can have your cake and eat it, too," he said from his room at the Aston Waikiki Circle Hotel. "This is a perfect example of that. It’s just wonderful that in five, six hours you can get from home to here to play tourist in Waikiki. Nobody makes mai tais like Duke’s."