Originally Posted by maisany

... I think the reason why this article raises the eyebrows of people not employed in the industry is that while these are legitimate employee benefits that are a part of your employment with AA (or with any airline, presumably), they're not the usual sorts of "benefits" that most people have, like health insurance, a 401K, or childcare, which most people consider to be "necessities" of life. They see people getting discount air travel and that compares with say someone getting discount tickets to a Broadway show or to Disneyland.