There is something not being told in this story of an almost octogenarian flight attendant on 250K /annum, the holder of company awards and letters of endorsement from customers, embroiled in a battle with her employer over minor theft and drinking. For the sake of click bait, the real truth is not being told, so I'm putting any judgments on hold until the truth emerges. But to those who wish her removed from flight duties because she is 'too old' be aware that another poster above has offered the revelation of Flight Attendant who was 91 years old!! Interestingly, back in the day when I flew TWA on a few positioning flights, I don't remember seeing any cabin crew who could be considered anything but old, especially the Chief Purser. I have no idea of their ages but some of the senior ones I guess were in their 70's and the juniors in economy in their 40's through 60's. This was compared to my national airline where the cabin crew throughout the aircraft were positively youthful by comparison.
Now I am all for older people working because God knows that there is no other way to survive if life hasn't been kind to you. I am reasonably confident that she could pass all the physical and mental requirements of the job and conduct her flight duties in the expected manner otherwise she wouldn't still be there, wouldn't be getting company awards and wouldn't be getting good job letters from her customers. Interestingly, Health and Safety has said you cant lift any more than X and are not allowed to lift passengers bag's into the bins in some airlines. I have no idea what Delta's policies are but it is quite likely that H&S avoids heavy lifting being part of her job description. So the only real risk for carrying a 79 year old is that she has a medical event en route that requires a diversion or that she dies on duty. Compared to those Captains who have medical events or collapsed dead on approach, the risk to the carrier and to safety on board seems incredibly less. I see no reason why she would be unable to administer O2, wield a fire extinguisher, guide passengers to evacuation exits or deploy life-rafts (passengers may be generally be asked to assist with this anyway since they are not one man or women deployable). Pushing a full drinks trolley up front on climb out may be testing but I suspect her senior position prevents her from having to play that game too often. The same applies to opening cabin doors which can be heavy and awkward to maneuver and especially when armed for an emergency evacuation. However, years of opening these doors means she has the technique down pat and clearly she passed the emergency drills on her annual training. ( The first time I opened a B727 door as a young man, it nearly threw me out of the aircraft with it! I was instructed how to get your stance right and understand the action, then you can get the door inertia to to all the hard work...while remaining in the aircraft). So, all I can say is that some people don't like seeing old people serve them a snack, would prefer a 'trolley dolly' and are just generally ageist. Can't do much about that I guess. If Delta doesn't want old employees, then the airline could certainly treat it's long serving employees better by offering severance packages to older staff that incentivise them to leave the workforce while offering the employee some forward security and adjustment time.
In any case, it seems some Delta Flight attendants do have a drinking problem. Looks like this one gets off lightly while the 79 year old gets hammered ..so to speak.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/trave...er-drink-limit