Airline employee's lives are governed by seniority. The most senior crew members get their choice of trips and their positions on the plane. The relative prestige of the flight attendant in comparison to their coworkers is intricately linked to their date of hire.
The junior people get to sit around and hope/not hope that somebody falls ill, has car trouble, or is otherwise incapacitated so they can get back on a plane.
All airlines do reserve slightly different, but it's all the same idea. The airline industry is a beast of unpredictability. As such, all airlines keep a pool of "reserve" flight attendants and pilots who do not carry a regular schedule.
Instead, they get to spend their reserve time at home or in the crashpad, waiting for a two hour call out to head to the airport.
Reserves can also be assigned a special spot in hell called airport reserve, where they spend their time wandering terminals, frequenting airport coffee shops, staring lustfully out the window (at sweet, sweet freedom), or hiding in basement crew rooms watching cartoons (maybe that's just me).
In the interest of fairness, airport reserve isn't all that bad. There are worse things than getting paid to watch TV and play peekaboo with babies over their parent's shoulders. It's the easiest job in the world, though often very boring. I don't think I can ever get tired of airports entirely, but I do get tired of overpriced airport food and coffee. I get tired of pressing my uniform every day just to sit around, wait and read.
But mostly I get tired of having my feet on the ground.
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