Some people have expressed concern about how any information provided to FirstAir will be used.

I can tell you that FirstAir does not intend on marketing to any of the "applicants".

This is not a scam: the intent is not to gather lots of names, select a few, and then market to the rest of the "applicants".

That is why I included my personal email if people have any questions, and I would hope that my longstanding participation as an active FT member would also help provide reassurance to people.

The reason for having "applicants" at all is that the expense here is high per participant, and they only want 20 or so globally, so they naturally would like to select ones that they feel will provide genuine input.

This is airline/region specific. They are offering this to people who have sufficient experience to be able to provide valuable feedback (as this is quite an expensive "thank you" -- more than you would typically see for this kind of thing and very relevant to many of us).