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It's still good to be responsible for the passengers of an airplane as a flight attendant at the age of sixty. Too old to be a receptionist at a hotel?
At easyJet, the number of cabin crew over 50 has more than doubled in four years, and the number of over 60s has almost quadrupled. KLM has built a dedicated network for 50+ employees, and Finnair proudly introduces a 54-year-old career changer. Meanwhile, the European hotel and catering industry continues to complain about a labor shortage. It would be worth seeing who we are leaving out of the search.
For decades, the public has had a fairly accurate image of a flight attendant: young, pretty, smiling, preferably female. Aviation and the profession itself have changed a long time ago, but the stereotype is slowly fading. EasyJet is now changing this: it is not just allowing older applicants to join, but is also consciously seeking out and encouraging career changers over the age of fifty .
According to the company's figures published on 25 August 2026, 12% of its cabin crew are over 50. Their number has increased by 127% since 2022, and the number of cabin crew over 60 has almost quadrupled. According to a statement from easyJet on 25 August, applications will open in September 2026 for hundreds more UK cabin crew positions for 2027. easyJet – 50+ cabin crew recruitment, 25 August 2026.
More interesting than the data, however, is why they do it . And even more interesting is why other areas of tourism don't do the same at a much higher rate.
They don't look at age, they look for competence.
As passengers, we see the most service in a flight attendant's job, while the primary responsibility of the cabin crew is safety. They prepare for emergencies, evacuate, provide first aid, manage conflicts, deal with sick or aggressive passengers, perform security checks, and in addition to all this, they provide the service from which the passenger ultimately draws conclusions about the quality of the airline.
easyJet’s own cabin crew requirements do not include being young, but rather being able to communicate clearly, remain calm under pressure, make safe decisions, problem solve with empathy and work as part of a team. You must be at least 18 years old, the rest is a matter of suitability and competence. easyJet Careers – Cabin Crew
And this is where the labor market logic of some parts of hospitality starts to get strange to me. If a sixty-year-old person can, with the appropriate physical and mental fitness, be responsible for the safety of passengers on an airplane, handle an emergency situation, and provide service at an altitude of ten thousand meters, it is difficult to find a professional argument why the same person would automatically be too old for a hotel reception, guest relations, or restaurant job.
Yet, anyone over fifty who has applied for a service position probably knows that the thinking behind the "youthful team" is disappearing from job advertisements more slowly than the term itself.
As a passenger, I really like the multi-generational crew.
For me, this is not a theoretical HR issue. One of the reasons I like flying with KLM and Finnair, especially in the long term, is because different age groups work together naturally on board. Younger, middle-aged and older cabin crew members in the same team. For me as a passenger, this is reassuring.
I don't think a fifty-five-year-old flight attendant is better than a twenty-five-year-old because of their age. Nor vice versa. I do think a multi-generational crew seems more balanced, and especially on a long-haul flight I appreciate the feeling that the team has both fresh energy and many years of experience.
For me, this is partly what sets easyJet apart from the majority of the low-cost sector. On many of their flights, I encounter a remarkably more mixed age group of staff, and this adds to the service experience for me. Not because I would consider age in itself an indicator of quality, but because it shows that the airline has not narrowed down the concept of a good employee to a single generation.
According to easyJet's own survey, the impact is not only felt on the passenger side, but also within the team.
What do the 50+ flight attendants themselves say about this?
easyJet also surveyed 47 cabin crew members over the age of 50 with Censuswide in August 2026. The sample is not large, so it is not worth making universal laws from it, but the results show very well how a multi-generational team can work in practice.
53% of cabin crew aged 50+ said they felt like they were mentoring younger colleagues , and 76% said they worked in an inclusive environment where age didn’t matter. Four out of five, 80%, felt their life experience was valued from day one, 75% said the training had boosted their confidence faster than expected, and 85% were particularly happy with how multi-generational and inclusive the team was . easyJet – 50+ cabin crew research
Passenger data should be treated with a degree of caution as it does not directly ask passengers. 68 per cent of cabin crew surveyed find that passengers of all ages respond positively to multi-generational crew, with 55 per cent saying that passengers are often particularly happy to see a cabin crew member of their own age on board. easyJet – 50+ cabin crew research
I can easily believe the latter based on my own passenger experience. Why would it be natural for a passenger in their fifties, sixties, or seventies that the service staff should consist exclusively of twenty-year-olds?
The wider research by easyJet surveyed 801 British adults who had made a significant career change after the age of 50. Of these, 79 per cent saw their age as an advantage rather than a barrier in the job market. The transferable skills they most often mentioned included problem-solving, dealing calmly with stressful and unexpected situations and communication . Travel and Tourism was also the most attractive field for those looking to change careers after the age of 50. easyJet – 50+ career change research
These are surprisingly similar to the list of competencies that a hotel or restaurant would describe when looking for a good receptionist, guest relations officer, manager, or server.
A 64-year-old former nurse and a 54-year-old former firefighter can both be flight attendants
In a statement from easyJet in 2026, Francesca Hicks (64) joined the airline after completing a cabin crew taster programme for over-50s. She had previously worked as a secretary and dementia carer. EasyJet said she had flown more than 250 flights within 18 months. Hicks herself highlighted her communication, organisational and interpersonal skills as skills she had brought to her new role from her previous jobs. easyJet – Francesca Hicks’ story
Lisa Nicholson started as a flight attendant at Finnair in April 2024 at the age of 54. Before that, she worked as a firefighter in the UK for 21 years, and then ran her own business teaching fire safety, first aid, oxygen and defibrillator use, and other safety topics. Finnair – Lisa Nicholson's story
I think this is a great example of what it really means to look at competence instead of age. In a selection process, it doesn't matter what we see: a 54-year-old retiree or twenty-one years of firefighting experience, first aid and safety knowledge, stress management, teaching experience, and mature communication.
The two people are the same, but they don't have the same approach when it comes to selection.
By the way, long careers at Finnair are not unusual either. Katriina Veikkola spent 45 years as a cabin crew member at the company, and Marja Lehtinen worked for Finnair for 46 and a half years, including decades as a flight attendant. In her own memoirs, Lehtinen highlighted the fact that she was able to work with colleagues of all ages as a positive. Finnair – Katriina Veikkola’s 45-year career
KLM went even further: it built a system around experience
I find the KLM example particularly interesting because it is not a recruitment campaign. The Dutch airline has a special employee network called Experienced KLM for colleagues over the age of fifty. According to KLM itself, almost half of its employees are in this age group. KLM Careers – Experienced KLM
The goal of the network is not to isolate the older ones, but rather to use the knowledge they have accumulated. They mentor younger colleagues, participate in projects and problem-solving, while the knowledge exchange also works in reverse: younger colleagues bring digital tools, new technologies and different ways of working.
KLM is also not pretending that ageism doesn’t exist. One of the reasons for the creation of Experienced KLM was that experienced employees reported that they were getting fewer job interviews and that their professional progress was stalling . The company’s response was through mentoring, training, intergenerational cooperation and knowledge retention. KLM – Experienced KLM: Wisdom is priceless
For me, this is not primarily a diversity program: it is knowledge management.
If a fifty-five-year-old employee has twenty to thirty years of customer situations, conflicts, decisions, mistakes, and solutions in their head, losing that is a business loss. And a good organization doesn't choose older people over younger people, but finds a way for the two types of knowledge to reinforce each other.
Multigenerational workforce is not exotic in aviation
Of the 103,000 employees of the Lufthansa Group at the end of 2025 , 32.6 percent were at least fifty years old , of which 9,080 employees were already in the over-60s age group. These figures naturally apply to the entire group, not just the cabin crew. Lufthansa Group Annual Report 2025 – workforce age distribution
At SAS, the proportion is even higher: according to the 2025 annual report , 4,049 out of 10,314 employees, or just over 39 percent, were over fifty . This is also company-wide data, but that is why it is interesting. At several large European airlines, older employees are not a special case, but part of the normal workforce composition. SAS Annual Report FY2025
easyJet also reported a 73-year-old active cabin crew member in 2023: Pam Clark started as a cabin crew member at the age of 53 and was still flying twenty years later. easyJet – Nana Pam celebrates 73rd birthday
Cécile Beck's career was even longer: the Zurich flight attendant worked until the age of 85 , flying for Pan Am and then Delta Air Lines during her six-decade career. SRF – Cécile Beck's 60-year career
These are extreme examples, of course. But they are enough to challenge the rather stubborn notion that frontline care is an inherently young profession.
Meanwhile, hospitality claims there is no workforce
HOTREC, the umbrella organisation for the European hotel, restaurant and catering industry, prepared a situation assessment of the hospitality sector in the European Union in January 2026. According to this, the sector employs around 10 million people in two million businesses in the EU, while there are significant differences between Member States: in some places the labour shortage has eased, in others – especially during the tourist peak season – it remains severe. On average, the sector still lacks around 10 percent of the necessary workforce. Moreover, HOTREC is not only talking about a shortage of staff: there is also a shortage of digital competences, sustainability knowledge and strong interpersonal skills. HOTREC – Skills and Labour Shortages: A Roadmap for Action
That's why I'm using the phrase "there are no people" more and more cautiously. Because there are people. There are fifty-year-olds, sixty-year-olds, career changers, part-time job seekers, former entrepreneurs, teachers, bank employees, nurses or salespeople who want to do something different with twenty or thirty years of professional and life experience. Not all of them are suitable for hospitality, just as not all of the twenty-five-year-old applicants are. The question is whether they even get to the point where we examine their suitability .
For example, a fifty-year-old bank teller’s communication and conflict management skills can easily be worth more to a front desk than having never worked in a hotel. A former teacher can become an excellent guest relations associate or trainer, and a healthcare worker’s experience can be especially valuable in a resort or hotel ship. These skills don’t have to be built from scratch. They have to be translated to a new service environment.
Of course, the employer also has to adapt to this. It is not certain that a fifty-five-year-old career changer can be addressed with the same message, on the same channel and with the same work organization as a twenty-year-old. More flexible schedules, part-time work, proper onboarding, technology training or a real career-change program can be worth much more than a loud employer branding campaign.
And you also have to take into account that someone who has worked for twenty or thirty years will not necessarily consider a low salary, unpredictable schedule, and the opportunity to be part of a “dynamic, youthful team” as an attractive offer. Sometimes it may not be the applicant who is too old, but the offer that is too bad.
Research also does not prove that the frontline is a natural field for young people.
The relationship between service and age is of course more complicated than that. I don't think we should replace one age stereotype with another and claim that an older employee is automatically better.
However, there are some noteworthy research findings. A meta-analysis of 103 independent samples and a total of 48,067 frontline workers found that, on average, customer mistreatment of employees decreased with age. The effect varied by industry and cultural context, and was less pronounced in hospitality than in healthcare or banking. This does not mean that “older is better.” It does suggest that the relationship between age and frontline performance is much more complex than a recruitment decision based on date of birth would suggest. Journal of Services Marketing – Frontline employee age and customer mistreatment
Another meta-analysis, also examining hospitality, also found a negative relationship between employee age and poor treatment from customers, based on 141 samples and data from over 40,000 employees. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management – meta-analysis
So the research doesn't give us authority to now favor the fifty-five over the twenty-five. Rather, it gives us the authority to finally abandon automatic conclusions drawn from age and measure what is truly needed for the job.
You don't need to be young or old. You need a good team.
A young employee can bring energy, digital routine, a new perspective, and questions that we might not ask after working in the same system for twenty years. An older colleague can bring perspective, stability, human knowledge, and experience from situations that cannot be imparted in training.
KLM organizes this as a knowledge transfer. Finnair sees it as natural. And easyJet now sees it as a targeted recruitment market. As a passenger, all three approaches are sympathetic to me, and professionally they make perfect sense.
For hospitality, I don't think the question is whether we need more workers over fifty or sixty. The question is whether an industry struggling with a labor shortage can afford to ignore competence based on age.
easyJet has more than doubled the number of cabin crew over 50 in four years, and almost quadrupled the number of cabin crew over 60. A significant number of the older cabin crew working there are mentored, value their previous experience and enjoy the multi-generational team. KLM is building a special system to retain the knowledge of 50+, while Finnair has fifty-something career changers and cabin crew careers spanning more than four decades.
Meanwhile, the European hospitality industry continues to talk about a labor shortage of about ten percent. A significant part of this is very real: demographics, wages, working conditions, seasonal needs and changed employee expectations are behind it. But I think part of it is also a lack of imagination. Because sometimes it's not the person who is missing. It's just not the age we imagined.
Resources
The legal, regulatory, industry and international information used in this article reflects the status as of September 10, 2026 , and we also used artificial intelligence (ChatGPT, Claude) to collect, compare and organize it; the final editing, interpretation and conclusions reflect the editorial position of szalloda.blog . We also used AI-based applications to create some of the illustrations and infographics for this article .