16 hour duty days? Are you sure? http://www.unitedafa.org/res/cba/bb/07.htm appears to propose shorter duty days than 16 hours, but you could be right.

Terrible as it might be to have to sit around for a few hours between flights, it's not like the FAs have to do a lot of "work" for the non-flight portion of their duty day. (I realize that their "clock" begins at pushback and ends at parking brake, so some preflight work is "off the clock.")

Anyway, focusing on their hourly rates and the number of hours can be deceptive. Their book hourly rates are much higher than those earned by most people in this country. Of course, they don't "work" a typical 40 hour week for 48-50 weeks per year. Lots of people work unusual schedules.

Firefighters, for example, might work 10 days per month. Of course, those days are 24 hours long. Some months a lot of that time might just be spent "sitting around" while other months, they might spend most of their time on fire calls. In one sense they are "working" all 24 hours of each duty shift. In another sense, one could fairly subtract all the hours they spend sleeping, eating, watching TV, exercising, etc. (hours not spent at fires or cleaning equipment, etc.) as "off time" (but "on call"). I live across the street from an LA city fire station, explaining my familiarity with their work schedule.

FAs spend a portion of their duty day working on board airplanes. They may also spend a good portion of their duty day just sitting around, eating, napping, watching TV, reading, etc., while waiting for their next flight or walking thru the airport to get to their next flight.

What really matters is whether their monthly or annual pay is enough to entice them to do what they do. If it isn't enough, then many will quit.