The Smart Marty Sky Dispatch
We're married airline pilots. Free travel is a major perk, but it often feels like we're long-distance.
Married pilots Tyler Bell and Jenn Hoare travel for free, but also spend days apart, squeezing in coffee dates in airport terminals between flights.
Two airline pilots share a life shaped by overlapping schedules and free travel benefits. Tyler Bell, 28, is a first officer at JetBlue, and his spouse Jenn Hoare, 33, is a first officer at Breeze Airways. Their relationship has blended professional passion with a shared love of travel, often turning trips and layovers into opportunities to explore together.
The couple describes a dynamic close to long-distance when they’re not together on trips, with weeks stretching between home days and flight duties. They split time between a Boston-area apartment and crew hotels across the Americas, sometimes going five days together at home followed by a week apart, depending on bid blocks and weather disruptions.
They highlight free standby travel as a major perk that enables international and domestic getaways. They plan for contingencies, using A, B, and C options since seats aren’t guaranteed, and have used these benefits for multi-country trips and even extended stops during layovers.
Their personal philosophy emphasizes open communication and shared interests to support a demanding career. They credit their first-hand experience with pilots who faced broken promises or financial strain, and say constant communication helps keep their relationship grounded and resilient.
Travel highlights include trips to the Faroe Islands, Italy, and a delayed honeymoon to Tanzania, where they climbed Mount Kilimanjaro on their first wedding anniversary. They describe the Kilimanjaro ascent as the hardest thing they’ve done, noting the high altitude and challenging conditions before reaching the summit.