Attendants have higher risk than pilots. This kind of makes sense, as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often. Meanwhile, attendants are flying all the time.
Attendants have higher risk than pilots. This kind of makes sense, as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often. Meanwhile, attendants are flying all the time.
> as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often
From a quick search, I can’t find evidence of this. If anything, pilots are in the air more of their week/lives vs. flight attendants.
In my search, I found that they spend almost an equal number of hours in air like you said - 75-100 hours per month. If that's the case, after adjusting for sex, these numbers holding would throw some uncertainty into the radiation hypothesis.
The fuselage probably has a lot less attention to shielding even if the cockpit seems very exposed.
This is peak HN. Two engineers running google searches without any primary sources speaking up about the issue.
Account created 2021
I guess I am going off when a pilot spoke at my high school for career day. (Decades ago...)
Older flight attendants look really damaged by the job. The combination of irregular sleep, quite likely too much alcohol and sun in layover locations when younger. Plus radiation, and biological hazards like being around sick people and smelling farts all day. Being in an enclosed space is not that great for the lungs either, just being around people wearing perfume, is likely bad for the lungs
Your comments makes problematic suggestions, but I found it funny that the more childish one —farts– is actually very true: with the lower pressure, people do fart more on airplanes.
What problematic suggestions?
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Why is this comment downvoted? This is objectively true. HN is a worse orange reddit.
I handed it a downvote. Here's why:
> Older flight attendants look really damaged by the job.
First off, this is just anecdotal and I know FAs who do _not_ look "damaged by the job". So, we're off to a bad start.
> The combination of irregular sleep, quite likely too much alcohol and sun in layover locations when younger.
Not all FAs fly crazy schedules. This comment then makes assumptions about where younger FAs fly, and suggests they all drink too much. More conjecture to back up a weak claim without any evidence provided.
> Plus radiation, and biological hazards like being around sick people and smelling farts all day. Being in an enclosed space is not that great for the lungs either, just being around people wearing perfume, is likely bad for the lungs
OK, so this article is about radiation. That is at least addressing the topic. Calling "smelling farts" a biological hazard is borderline ridiculous. "Being around sick people" is what nurses do all day. There are _many_, _many_ professions where _being around a lot of people_ is part of the job. It does not seem particularly notable here.
They end by saying that being in an enclosed space is bad for your lungs. Uh, ok. Maybe? Probably? How bad? Compared to what? Being outdoors in an area prone to air pollution?