Mxsmanic wrote:
Sylvain writes:

indeed. But we (macho chauvinistic pigs) were hoping that they
would have retired by now and replaced by younger / attractive
generations :-)

In the early days of aviation there were mostly young FAs because
aviation was itself too young to produce old FAs, at least in any
quantity.

Now, decades later, there have been many thousands of FAs working for
decades and so the number of older FAs with substantial seniority has
greatly increased. For FAs, seniority is everything, since once one
has learned to carry out the job competently, there are no other
criteria of advancement (the job can only be done so well).

Seniority is important for pilots, too, but there are other factors.
Piloting is a job in which one learns indefinitely from experience,
so that's a factor. Also, pilots are required to retire at a fairly
young age, which prevents seniority from becoming too much of an
issue.


DATA POINT
This morning on NPR they did their weekly series where one person interviews
another. Ususally an adult child or grandchild interviewing a parent or
grandparent. This morning it was a son interviewing his mother who was hired
as a stewerdess fro Delta in 1949. She had to quit (airline rule at the
time) when she got married.