<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JS:
Secondly, an award ticket is a product of the frequent flyer program, which exists solely as a marketing tool, not an entitlement program. Employee travel is an entitlement, in exchange for lower wages. An employee who flies for free does not help the airline in any way. A customer who flies for free does help the airline, because that person must buy airline tickets first.
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Using that logic one could say that an employee does actually help the airline. Let's face it, the lure of free airline travel is what gets people to take these jobs in many cases. Without that they would have far fewer people willing to work for "lower wages". Without employees willing to work for these wages they wouldn't be able to afford to operate the way they do currently, offering the low rates that many people enjoy. So, in effect the employees do provide something very valuable in that they are willing to work for next to nothing in exchange for the promise of free airline tickets. True, customers are the bottom line and without them we wouldn't exist but to say that employees don't provide help in any way is wrong at best.