Originally Posted by JetDoc

I recently asked my sister, a 30 year United FA the same and her answer was similar. She simply is not interested in the same things her airline pilot brother is. No interest in how airplanes work, how to fly them, period. She is not wired that way. As far as the lifestyle, she made several interesting points. As a pilot you are locked into one airframe with much less scheduling flexibility. As a flight attendant you have a pool of 20,000 plus who are qualified on all airframes, making trip trading, swapping, dropping much, much easier. She raised 2 daughters and missed very few of their important milestones growing up because of work. Small sample size I know but if you extrapolate it provides a bit of perspective.