There's a survey of FA salaries here. It's compiled from anonymously reported data. AA reported median is about $46k, DL about $43k. Not as much as a public school teacher, but less - make that no - education required.

Twelve weeks' paid summer vacation plus massive weeks-long holiday breaks, so I shed no tears for teachers that "have to be there when the students are not there." Most of us "have to be there" 50 weeks a year, not 28 or 29. Also, you can do a very bad job and nothing bad happens to you. As with FAs, good teachers hurt themselves by supporting a union system that protects their incompetent, corrupt or stupid colleagues.

Nor me, but I have a smart kid in an (allegedly good) public school system who has been exposed to, and hurt by, crashingly bad teachers as well as a few excellent ones. And they all disappear at every opportunity; the last week or two of the school year the classrooms are top-heavy with substitutes, as so many regular teachers abandon their students to take booked cruises, etc. The rules for parents are pretty much the same as for airline passengers: sit down, shut up, attempt no contact. As with FAs there is no way to address incompetence and the teachers hold most of the political cards.

Like flight attendants, teachers have craftily built up a public image heavy on martyrdom and sanctity, with the intent of neutralizing all criticism and protecting the entire class of employees, no matter how bad they are. The FA's "We are here primarily for your safety" or "We're here to save your a@@, not kiss it" is the teacher's "If you can read this, thank a teacher," etc.

Yet neither job rewards good performance or penalizes terrible performance, and neither stands for excellence. The airline customer experience in the US has degenerated to a grim and stressful level, and the children processed indifferently by public schools get dumber every year.