[gozur88]

Escort carriers were basically just merchant ships with a flat deck. They were small enough to build in ports that couldn't accommodate larger warships.

And they weren't really designed for battle - they were designed to protect convoys from submarines (at least the US version). They weren't as fast as fleet carriers, had smaller air wings, little armor, less range, almost no anti-aircraft capability, and not much in the way of damage control. As a pilot you really wouldn't want to be on an escort carrier.

Though it could be worse - you could be on a CAM ship:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAM_ship

In the Battle of Leyte Gulf a handful of escort carriers were responsible for sinking a fair number of Japanese capital ships, so they weren't useless in fleet actions.