This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tyler Bell, 28, a first officer at JetBlue Airways, who is married to Jenn Hoare, 33, a first officer at Breeze Airways. It has been edited for clarity and length. All cockpit photos were taken in accordance with applicable federal regulations and company policies.
My wife, Jenn, and I recently had an unusual date night: Better Buzz, a coffee shop inside the San Diego airport. Not idyllic, but our best option as two working airline pilots.
Our trips overlapped, barely. She had time between flights, so I arrived early to meet her before mine. We spent an hour catching up over coffee before going our separate ways.
While our hectic flight schedules can often make us feel like we’re in a long-distance marriage, we get to live our flying dreams and travel the world together for free.
We met at an airport and got married in a hangar
Jenn began her aviation career in 2016 as a JetBlue flight attendant and was encouraged by the pilots she met to consider flying.
She went on to complete pilot training at the flight school in Massachusetts where I was an instructor. My interest in flying began as a toddler, and I became an instructor after years of training and flying small planes.
It wasn’t until after Jenn got her pilot’s license that we started dating, hiking in the Berkshires and taking short trips together. She eventually joined Breeze Airways, and I now fly for JetBlue Airways.
In 2025, we married at the New England Air Museum in Connecticut, by Bradley International Airport near Hartford. It’s only natural we’d have our wedding at an airport.
We held our ceremony, cocktails, and reception across the museum’s 100,000 square feet of connected hangars, surrounded by more than 100 historic aircraft. Signature drinks were served from galley carts.
We’re long-distance one week and nonstop together the next
We split our time between our Boston-area apartment with our two cats, Ellery and Noogit, and crew hotels across the Americas.
We might spend five straight days together at home, then go a week without seeing each other. We both love our jobs, but it’s like toggling between a long-distance relationship and being tied at the hip.
Every month, we block off birthdays, holidays, and family events when bidding for trips, yet workdays pile up in between, and flight delays, cancellations, or weather disruptions can mean we sometimes don’t make it home at all.
It’s not unusual for one of us to come home as the other heads out the door.
Still, as pilots, we can turn a long overnight into a mini-vacation: Jenn once joined me for my 28-hour layover in Aruba between flights.
Shared interests and overcommunicating help us make it work
Among aviators, there’s a common understanding that a pilot career can be hard on marriages.
We’ve each sat next to pilots in the cockpit telling stories of broken promises, financial strain, and divorces. We started our marriage by committing not to become one of those statistics.
If we make one mistake, we’re likely to over-communicate. It may not sound romantic, but discussing bidding plans and flight patterns in airport coffee shops keeps us grounded and the information flowing.
Fortunately, we share similar interests.
As Jenn points out, “Having shared values, interests, and hobbies is key: We both really like being active, skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer, and love to travel.”
Free flights mean spontaneous trips all over the world
One of the best perks of the job is that we get standby travel benefits that let us fly for free, paying only a small listing fee and taxes. Because seats aren’t guaranteed, we plan ahead with plans A, B, and C — but it’s worth it.
That’s how we spent 12 days in the Faroe Islands this spring, living out of a camper van and hiking. We traveled to Italy this summer, eating our way through southern Italy and then hiking in the Dolomites.
We just returned from our delayed honeymoon to Tanzania, Africa, where we summited Mount Kilimanjaro. For seven days, we climbed the Machame route with nine other hikers and a crew of guides, porters, and cooks.
Summit night brought eight hours of steep, dusty trudging in the dark at 14 degrees Fahrenheit, with every breath a struggle at nearly 19,000 feet. It was the hardest thing either of us has ever done, but we reached the top on our first wedding anniversary.
We originally imagined going on a safari for our 25th anniversary, but as Jenn reminds me, “Why wait? This adventure is best done when we are at our physical peak.”
Still, we hope to start a family someday and recognize that our lifestyle will change. Until then, it’s just us, our cats, and a long list of places to visit.
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