One of the best perks of working for an airline is being able to travel around the world for free, or at least just for the cost of taxes.
The irony, though, is that when you’re first working for an airline you can’t afford all that free travel! The pay is frequently low, and hotels, meals and activities aren’t free.
Staff travel – or non-rev (non-revenue) – also comes with a host of rules and expectations. You are lowest priority (it’s usually standby for seats at the airport). You may have a dress code. And there are behavioral expectations.
One nice thing is that you can often extend your benefits to friends and family, and you may get to keep your travel benefits when you retire.
- It’s generally space available only (standby)
- With boarding priority based on whether you’re the employee, dependent, or using a buddy pass and the sponsoring employee’s seniority (hire date) or checkin/listing time.
- You’ll generally have to look presentable, especially in premium cabins. Speific rules can vary, and aren’t as strict as they once were, but assume no ripped jeans, offensive logos, beachwear, gym wear, or revealing clothing.
- And you’re supposed to be a representative of the airline – don’t drink excessively, cause disturbances, or abuse crew.
If you’re nonrevving you had better be a model passenger. Don’t stand out. Don’t complain. Even when you’re being abused.
A reader shares with me her experience as a nonrev flying on Alaska Airlines, where her daughter worked. She’s a grandmother and a ‘Disabled Veteran of a Foreign War’ and was one of the original members of Alaska Airlines Gold Coast Travel back in 1979. She’s been diagnosed with PTSD and was flying from Seattle to Tampa, seated at the window.
- She noticed “several rambunctious children and crying babies” in the gate area before her flight and was glad they were getting their energy out prior to boarding. However, “one child in particular stood out” for physical aggression and verbal assault towards other passengers and the space in the gate area. The boy appeared to be 6 or 7, and wasn’t being parented.
- The child and his mother wound up seated a few rows ahead of her. The flight attendants were kind despite his behavior. He “repeatedly slapped at” passengers in the aisle, and:
During takeoff he screamed and howled and slapped his mom and demanded to get out of his seat. After the seatbelt sign went off, however, the plane became his personal jungle gym. He alternated jumping on the seat, fiddling with the overhead buttons and then running up and down the isle with a frequent summersault and screech.
Enroute to the lavatory “he was literally crawling through people’s legs and shoving them if they wouldn’t budge.”
- She put on noise cancelling headphones and her eye mask and pulled her hoodie over her face. The boy hit her on the side of her head with a metal toy train. Hijinks ensued,
[T}he boy had thrown it in an effort to escape his mom chasing him down the isle. She caught the back of his shirt and he threw himself on the ground kicking and screaming like he was on fire. This ended up with him, and his mother basically on top of him right next to my isle.
- The boy “kept screaming and scratching and slapping” at his mother, all beside this woman’s seat. She leaned over “where his head was on the floor” and said, “HUSH! You need to BEHAVE yourself! This is not how we act on an airplane!”.
- The boy’s mother objected with an “Excuse me!” then “scooped him up and returned to their seats.”
A flight attendant tapped her on the should about 5 minutes later and insisted she speak with crew in the back galley, “How dare you attack and embarass a mother of a special needs child when she’s doing the best she can!”
They debated whether her behavior was appropriate, and whether the boy and his mother as ‘frequent flyers’ were due more courtesy due to the child’s autism? She countered with her own PTSD from combat trauma.
That’s when the crewmember laid down the trump card: “Well, I checked, and you’re a non-rev, and they’re paying customers!” And the flight attendant insisted she apologize to the mother. She refused. On arrival, a flight attendant made an announcement applauding the boy and shaming the woman.
I know you’re all anxious to deplane but we have a special guest on board who is a frequent flyer with us. His name is Ian and he’s special needs and does the best he can. So I’d like you all to give Ian a round of applause for making another long flight!
Lastly, I want to thank those of you that were helpful and kind. And to those of you who were NOT, you know who you are, SHAME ON YOU!
Crew filed a report on the interaction, and the woman’s daughter was called into her supervisor’s office the next day and got a warning about her non-rev’s behaviors and how her own flight benefits were at risk.
Nonrevs are often treated better than paying passengers. Crew may extend them courtesies like extra drinks and snacks, or they may be invited to change into empty seats with more legroom. But they also face a lot of uncertainty – not just over whether they’ll make it onto a given flight, but also whether they (or their sponsoring family member) will get called in and face discipline over behavior that would seem reasonable for a paying passenger.
Personally I’d just love to have access to the AA20 discount. If anyone wants to make me an American Airlines dependent, I’d gladly take 20% off paid and award travel!
Prohibiting children under the age of 16 years on flights is long overdue. Along with pets / “service animals.”
Sounds like Alaska Airlines employees suffer from being overall scum. Another useless American based carrier.
back in the day, the privilege often resulted in royal service chicken kiev and butterscotch sundaes from a window seat up front listening to the dulcet tones of those rb.211 engines
the price of wearing a suit and a tie as a child was a fair trade in 1975
flying space available is *INSANE* in 2025 when an airline can declare you a risk to NATIONAL SECURITY with no recourse and you can purchase your own personal cattle pen (‘seat’) in back (for the cost of an inflation-adjusted 1975 tank of gas) and have some reasonable expectation of boarding on the day and the time you want/need to travel
the chance of flying up front as a nonrev in the year 2025 is 1 in 100? 1in 500? 1 in 1000?
it’s not a benefit, it’s a discount with extreme risks
any relative of an airline employee reading this: DON’T DO IT
If I were the non-rev passenger and the employee of the non-rev at this point I would file a grievance with Alaska. As a former non-rev passenger myself (dad worked for Delta 35 years) yes you represent the airlines, but there is still a responsibility of the parent to ensure that their autistic child is not assaulting other passengers. The only thing I would’ve done differently is that I would’ve gone to the rear galley to report the incident of getting hit in the head with a metal object. Then it the flight attendants responsibility to intervene with the situation. I would also file a grievance in the airline shaming the Veteran with the PTSD. Shame on #Alsaka
I guess getting a free seat comes with being abused by the airline. Of course, if the flight attendants were actually there for everyone’s safety, they would have policed the situation before it got out of hand. I hate to see how they would handle an emergency evacuation. Probably keep everyone in their seats while the special needs child and parent gets ushered off first as flames are engulfing everyone else. The announcement at the end shows just how classy that crew is.
Oh, and exactly where is the isle. That would be a piece of land completely surrounded by water wouldn’t it? I noticed it was used several times.
@ hagbard celine. Yep! Your experience shows.
Seems like a classic case of all parties being wrong here – I understand the child had special needs, but assaulting someone with a toy is still assault – obviously some care needs to be taken with any interaction and it is up to the parent to control this. The passenger (whether paying or not) should not have interacted with the child (they don’t have the right to parent/discipline anyone’s child) but rather called the flight attendant call button and requested assistance – non-rev passengers still do have a right to safety even though they aren’t paying and the flight attendants would have had to intervene and if required restrained the offending passenger. Likely they would have spoken to the parent and asked the parent to control the child and all would have been well.
I fly non-rev all the time, have flown hundreds of flights on my partners’ benefits and yes when little things come up I know I have fewer rights than a paying passenger, but just acting like a decent person can go a long way.
Yeah, I’m sure there’s not another side to this story.
I put myself in this woman’s seat/position. Just because a child is old enough to behave appropriately, but isn’t, how are WE supposed to know this kid IS afflicted with a condition that causes it? And how much of this behavior should have to be tolerated by ANY one on the flight? Since the crew supposedly knows so much, THEY could have approached the woman who said what a normal person would have been inclined to especially on a lengthy flight, to let her know. They also could have, if space were available, moved her to another seat as far away from this kid as possible. Even IF non rev, being assaulted is not acceptable and if a child cannot control themselves that much, then should they be allowed to fly? Well, we won’t know unless the kid and parent are given a chance. And yes I do feel for them as well. But if something like this happens, and clearly en route they HAVE to get back, but maybe there is no flying again for a period of time? AND no matter what, the FA’s comment shaming the passenger who couldn’t take any more was equally if not more so inappropriate. Had she simply been informed, she might have had a wee bit more patience or tolerance. Too bad we’re not yet at a place where we all have private cubical/spaces with doors on the plane so we can all self isolate and children with special needs or not can be kept confined if they need to act out.
@andy how often do you sit up front when you nonrev?
“Don’t complain. Even when you’re being abused.” — Gary Leff.
I get the point, but, yeesh, outta context.. not a great quote. How’s ‘beggars shouldn’t expect to be choosers’ or similar sentiments. Though, technically, they ‘earn’ that privilege, so, not really ‘begging’ so much as second-class passengers, for these limited purposes.
I’m 100% on the side of the carrier here. The behavior of the non revenue pax was out of line. I have been a non rev since the day I was born 55 years ago and never would I scold another revenue pax child. The crew has the responsibility to maintain order. Not me.
If this story is even true and I’m-embellished (I’m sure it is) , the employee is damn lucky they still have pass privlidges.
If she has her own island, why is she flying Alaska?
in the usa, from the moment you enter airport property, before you park, encounter tsa, board, or in the air, you are in a special zone where the constitution, rule of law and the federal code DO NOT APPLY unless an airline or law enforcement, local, federal or extrajudicial, DECIDE IT DOES
this zone ends when you exit airport property at the conclusion of travel
the current paradigm is this: YOU are responsible for whatever bad happens to you, unless the above mentioned entities decide they want to be responsible, and since 9/11 we have devolved to the point where 9 times out of 10, they do not choose to do so
if you choose to contest this paradigm, you are subject to placement on lists of various kinds, especially if you contest an airline’s CoC in small claims court after the fact
Oh. And another thing. I’m sure Alaska has a policy not to air grievances online just like the two airlines I have benefits on does. Once they piece together who this was ……
if I was the employee, I would be preemptively kissing my pass privlidges goodbye.
i thought they had a Rx for autism. Maybe something else? Physically assaulting passengers, that’s a definite negative. However, non rev passengers need to be conscience of their flight status at the time. I like Alaska, good service, professional, etc. Remember the flight was going to FLORIDUH!
Your special needs end with assault/battery.
Generally, crew find bad child behavior reprehensible as other passengers. Meaning parents that take no effort to control their children and believe that their children should be a burden on others. I really see this in the lounges. Parents are getting plastered while their little monsters run amuck.
But today just say “special needs” and well anything goes. And one might wonder why so many young people are unable to cope as adults. Starts with this.
When we were young and flew it was a time in which planes were full of business men in suits. We got the you’re going to be an adult situation and therefore you will act like perfect gentlemen. No screaming. No shouting out loud. No endless squirming. No bothering others. Be sure to tell the flight attendant (back then stewardess) please and thank you when they take your beverage and meal choice. Well before the days of Ipads. Yes somehow, I and my three brothers were able to comply with what we were told.
I don’t think anyone handled this properly, just because a child has a label attached does not give them the right to behave this way. The parent has an obligation to control the child and the non-rev should have presented it to the flight crew for them to handle, but they are there for a different role and not as judge and jury.
If the crew actually did call out non-rev passenger during an announcement then they should be suspended pending re-training in conflict resolution before being allowed to work a flight again.
Oh, there’s more to this story. I’m interested to hear the other point of view between the two dueling disables.
I just got back from a non-rev trip from SFO-Amsterdam.
While I get business class 15% of the time, I don’t even go to the airport if the flight is close to full, which I can see on the non-rev app. Needless to say, traveling to Europe in July and August can be a crap shoot.
Other times it’s a wonderful benefit.
Heading to Osaka next month & Bs.As. in December. ✈️
Gary, you’d think twice about that AA20 discount when the first time a major IROP happens and despite being on a “paid” ticket some Executive Platinum line agent or Admirals Club agent looks at your reservation and says “Oh, AA20, you need to call the pass bureau, I’m not going to help you.” Because they can, while rarely they will to someone on such a reservation with status, and will tell you that you’re entitled to no special service while on the ticket. Don’t complain or they’ll have the employee dragged in.
If I were the employee in the situation with Alaska I would have 1.) grieved with my union if I were under a CBA, and/or 2.) said fine, my pass traveler is pressing charges against mother/child for battery.
In this case, the airline was wrong. Special needs or not, the other passengers should not be subjected to his tantrums.
Parents of autistic children know items to bring and how to travel .
The crew is wrong . They need to stay in their lane !
Passengers non rev or not , have a choice to have their own travel safe and comfortable.
Even a special needs child can be charged with assault in juvenile court. Rev or Non Rev is irrelevant. If the child assaults someone, are they just given a pass? What about the next time? And the next? I would file a complaint and ask the police to detain the mother and child when they landed. I would also ask them to take statements from the flight crew to get them on the record if they tried minimize the assault. A police record need to be taken to create a trail for future behavior. A juvenile court can decide if the mother is capable of handling the responsibility of taking care of the child. Passengers can and should put up with noise and many other minor behavior issues. However, assault is not one of them. Flight attendants would learn very quickly the cost in criminal court of obstruction if they try to cover up assault. They would also learn their slandering the passenger and encouraging the assault has civil consequences.
What does the so-called disabled person with PTSD have to do with anything. That’s a diagnosis that’s extremely easy to get in order to draw a taxpayer funded paycheck
I just sat in on a service member of being diagnosed by a government psychiatrist. The service member asked me to. What a total joke.
If you can’t control your child to not take them out. Period. End of story. No one else should have to be subjected to the inappropriate behavior of a child. If the child is special needs and cannot tolerate the environment of a plane then don’t put them on a plane and stop hiding behind special needs.
Had the non-rev not disciplined the child, I would have. So sick of parents letting their kids behave like wild animals while expecting the ret of us to just sit back and take it.
As a veteran of the US Navy, I will never fly on Alaska or Hawaiian Airlines. The flight attendant should have made the parent better control her child. This “special needs” is a cop out for not doing effective parenting.
Another “disabled” veteran. I work with a lot of them. They all coach each other on how to extract the highest possible VA percentage for their bullshit “PTSD” or some other equally difficult to disprove mental illness. It’s the new scam.
@nedskis,
As an EXP I fly on AA20s all the time. Never had an issue., put on standby lists during IROPS etc. There’s no pass bureau anyway, It’s all automated.
And no, @Gary, I’m not adding you to my passes. Can’t risk you mis-behaving when you don’t get up front LOL.
I don’t use my non-rev privileges to travel, I buy tickets or use miles, Except to get to/from work, and that’s usually with a jumpseat pass on DL or SW.
This question is to active employees. Is there anywhere on the manifest that a child’s medical diagnosis is verified and documented?
Are you trained to provide specific and special considerations that may vary for dozens of different special needs?
@CHRIS — Even if you ‘work with them,’ everything or everyone is not a scam, sir. And, after what most have been through, I think we should be doing more, not less, for our veterans, regardless. Like, if you hold them in such contempt, maybe you should not be anywhere near them. Sheesh.
Gary Leff you have enough of benefits already! Why do you want more benefits! Do you really feel that privileged
@Chris why don’t you head over to the sand box for about a year, see what our troops saw and then come back and tell me you have no PTSD. It sickens me that people like you have such flagrant disregard for the people who put their lives in the line to defend us.
Regarding the extraction of benefits from the VA how is this any different than people who “extract” benefit from the IRS by using every tax loophole. How it different from a politician who extracts gifts and favors from people eager to do business with them?
Asking for a friend.
@parker
You clearly don’t understand the depths of the scam. I know people that are in high school, joining the military to be an aircraft mechanic and are already plotting to be 100% disabled.
Is everyone faking disabilities? No. Are most faking disabilities? Yes.
100% of the veterans I work with are “disabled.” . Most had desk jobs stateside and never saw combat. All will admit with enough drinks down them that they are faking it. It’s “free money” as they call it. They all take home about 4 grand a month, tax free and that’s on top of the 200k they make in salary.
And it’s a lifetime scam that is already costing a large part of our GDP.
It’s not sustainable. .
This is a joke, right?
If not, and if I was a pax on that flight, IDGAF if your bratty demon spawn has “special needs,” or whatever other assorted bull excrement you’re trying to fling to excuse their behavior. I would have told the FAs their job is to keep order on the plane, and if this dipwad, selfish, clueless, entitled mom can’t control her brat and ensure he didn’t assault pax, they need to have police meet the flight at the gate. And if he touched me, he’d quickly learn that some of us still believe spanking works.
Bottom line is the kid’s “condition” caused an unsafe situation on an aircraft, and they should be banned from flying until they can prove he is under control. Their right to fly ends at everyone else’s right to a safe flight.
When everyone’s autistic, no one’s autistic. Parents need to control their loud, annoying slob monsters in public, and especially in confined metal tubes. So-called “disability” is not a hall pass for flagrant misbehavior.
In this instance I don’t blame the non-rev. Sorry the other pax had a “special needs” child but if he’s uncontrollable, he shouldn’t be on the plane. Personally, I hate non-revving with a passion, mostly the anxiety of waiting to clear but having to tolerate this kind of nonsense is another reason. Mostly fly on paid tickets now, even if I would clear otherwise.
Just because you are a non-rev does not mean that you have to accept abuse from a non supervised prick kid. The Flight attendants should be called in for allowing a situation like that to exist.
@2011 Retiree you gave that kid too much credit. The kid should be locked up and the parent needs to Fixed like dogs.
Autistic here (dx at age 5) and could not fly ages 5-9. We made several multiday cross country road trips due to it (so though it is difficult, there are other options besides air travel to get from WA to FL, another popular transportation method in the autism community: Trains). There is no excuse for bad behavior that involves violence against others. Regardless of severity, I have yet to know an autistic who lacks the sincere desire of human relationships. So giving us a pass for disruptive behavior instead of teaching us coping skills serves no one. Huge difference in giving grace and infantilizing us…Alaska and the mom did the later.
And if you are pinning your kid down, they are not ready for air travel. Not the time for exposure therapy.
I do have one unpopular opinion, in that the non-rev equated her disability from combat to autism. I could not join the military because of my disability, being born with a disability is very different. So I can see how that would rub people the wrong way.
But disability, veteran, non-rev or not, maybe Americans should just stop acting entitled.
Shall we put the autistic and intellectually disabled children, crying babies, and peanut-allergic people in puppy crates in the hold? If a drunk passenger verbally assaults you and throws a drink, you have been intentionally wronged. If an incontinent passenger’s urine lands on you, this is the risk of an unfortunate event occurring that you accepted when you boarded a commercial flight. Fly private if you want more control over your environment. You willingly locked yourself into a tube with hundreds of others and knowingly accepted the risk of everything from catching a deadly virus to the scent of some sleeping man’s farts reaching your nose. Count your good fortune on trips where you only encounter mild annoyances, but grow up, and say “this is not that time” once in awhile because you know you will eventually encounter a crying baby, annoying children, or a disability that results in a toy landing on you. Crowded, noisy environments are hell for autistic people who are often hypersensitive to sound, light, touch, taste. Just the background noise from engines, air conditioning and other systems can be excruciating, not to mention the proximity of so many other people. If you were witnessing a child being tortured in an obvious way, would you also complain that you were being disturbed? Do you tell parents of infants who are in agony with pressure changes that they should leave them home until they can learn how to equalize the pressure in their ears? Most parents of autistic children will (hopefully) greatly curtail travel, especially for the benefit of the child. If they were on a plane, most parents will have thought long and hard before booking the flight and deemed it necessary. They know that airports and airplanes are very likely to result in a meltdown. Here’s a descriptions of what that looks like and you can google for more if you wish. “An autistic child’s meltdown is an intense reaction to being overwhelmed, during which they lose behavioral control and may exhibit behaviors such as yelling, crying, hitting, biting, kicking, throwing objects, or intense stimming like rocking or flapping. It is not a tantrum; it’s a genuine sign of extreme distress and a temporary inability to express themselves or cope with the situation.”
@tomri — If you’re going to be that hyperbolic, why not suggest they each be ‘put down,’ too. Sheesh.
@D:
Love the completely over-the-top hyperbole. I’ll put it to you simply: It is not us who should have to adjust; it is ALL of the people you mentioned who need to. If your kid is too out-of-control to fly, that’s not everybody else’s problem; it’s THE PARENT’S. If you have a peanut allergy, WEAR A MASK. If you’re that incontinent, WEAR A DIAPER and BRING PADS. If your kid is too uncomfortable to the point where it screams the entire journey (happened to me on a flight from MAD-PHL), get your doctor to prescribe something to help it cope, or buy tickets for grandma and grandpa to come and see you.
After all, they bought a ticket knowing they would be locked in a tube with other people for whom unacceptable/unsafe behavior should not be allowed or tolerated. If you or your offspring are incapable of acting appropriately in civil society, it’s YOU who has to adapt.
And it’s interesting you bring up drunk pax. AFAIC, the entire AS staff – from the gate agent at the departure airport to the entire flight crew – should be reprimanded for allowing this out-of-control monster – and safety threat – along with his arrogant, clueless and selfish mother to get on the plane in the first place. After all, they’re not supposed to allow people who appear intoxicated to board – regardless if they are creating a disturbance or not. It’s their job to ensure EVERYONE boarding is not a safety threat.
Hate to break it to you sunshine, but life ain’t fair. It’s sad that the mom’s kid was born with a disability. But when that kid can’t handle a plane trip to the point where it’s a major disruption and safety hazard, It’s SHE who should consider flying private or driving. This is yet another example where laws like the ADA and ACAA were well-intentioned, but have gone WAY too far and need reform.