The Airline Gene

My mother’s side of the family has a genetic inclination towards working for the airline industry. My grandfather wanted to be a pilot and introduced the world of travel to my grandmother. She discovered her love of travel and began to work for United Airlines; making it easier for her family to explore many cities and countries. My mother grew up with the idea of the world being an airport away and now works for JetBlue airlines, allowing my family to travel a bit easier.
Since I am looking for work, I have that natural, genetic inclination to look for work with the airlines. This decision is made with careful consideration of where different hubs are located, where the best flight coverage is, and which airlines are not already represented by a cousin or different family member. This criteria lead to a few airlines, the best choice being Delta [Delta has a flight that is beautiful to me—nonstop from Salt Lake City to Prague, that is reason enough to work for them].
My mom and I decided that Delta would be an incredible airline to work for--solely on flight benefits. Knowing just a little bit about flight benefits I asked my mom about the different perks that are offered by a few major airlines. For United and JetBlue benefits: spouses, children (who are under 21), and the parents of the employee fly free*. This is stanby flying and so you play with the risks of not getting on the flight, having to sleep in airports, using odd connections, and spending lots of time in airports. An interesting aspect to me is that parents fly free for a few of the major airlines.
The hampster in my mind that runs on the thought-producing plastic wheel started going double speed and I was struck with brilliance. The airline job is not extremely attractive as full time work at the low salary most employees are played. However, because there are benefits for my parents if I work for Delta, I realized a second incentive that could encourage for me to work for Delta.
“Mom? How much would YOU pay me to work for Delta?”

*Mel's note: When I say free, I mean that they don’t have to pay the full flight price but there are airport and country fees