Silver-Haired and Shameless About Perks: Retirees Take Part-time Work in the Travel Industry
Spend 15 hours a week loading baggage at the airport or passing out towels at the pool, and you can see Europe for a fraction of the usual cost.
Maria Boyd-Scott turned 60 last month, and she and her wife, Joey Boyd-Scott, 68, celebrated the milestone in style: They flew business class to Amsterdam, staying at a Hilton for two nights, and then headed to France for two nights at the Waldorf Astoria Versailles.
The damage to their wallets? Thanks to their part-time travel jobs, their flights cost $462 total they paid only the taxes. The Hilton in Amsterdam was $55 a night and the five-star hotel in France was $75 a night. The Boyd-Scotts estimate the trip could have cost upward of $6,000.
The couple are part of a growing class of auxiliary travel workers who are stepping in as airlines and hotels, already struggling with thinned ranks after mass layoffs in 2020, now contend with the great resignation of employees. Many of these new workers are seasoned, silver-haired and shameless about the fact that theyre in it for the perks.
I have a lot of friends in the airline industry, and I watched them all fly and thought, Well, that would be fun, Maria said. So I applied when I was 58 years old, and I got a call.
Maria took a job as a ramp agent for United Airlines in May 2021, loading and unloading baggage at Ontario International Airport in Californias San Bernardino County. Most weeks she puts in 15 hours, the minimum to maintain access to the flight benefits afforded to all United employees, which include unlimited standby travel for herself and a loved one free within the United States and deeply reduced internationally and discounted standby fares to any location serviced by the airline.
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