You Could Make $25 an Hour With a Work-From-Home Airline Job — No Degree Required

You may have seen posts on social media touting an airline job that paid $34 an hour and came with free flights as a job perk – no experience necessary. If it sounded too good to be true to you, it was. Online debunker Snopes.com researched and found that the jobs posted all over the web are actually a scam. The great news? When you dig a little deeper on the airline carrier’s site you’ll find that there are actually remote jobs available with that airline. The lesson here: Working for an airline is a highly coveted experience. Those jobs are out there and they pay well. You just need to know when you’re searching and applying for them which are the fakes and which are the real work from home airline jobs.

And for all things work-from-home, click here and here!

How to know if the work from home airline job is real

“When you attempt to apply for the [fake] jobs, the job board sites ask for lots of personal information during a prolonged application process. This harvests data like your name, email, phone number and more,” explains Thomas Orsolya on Malwaretips.com. “At some point in the process, you will be prompted to “opt-in” to allow your information to be shared with “marketing partners.” This allows shady advertisers to bombard you with spam texts, calls and emails.”

So how do you find, apply – and most important – get hired for a work-from-home airline job? Read on to learn more.

Which airline jobs can be done work-from-home?

Since airlines are situated in airports, there are only a handful of airline jobs that can be done remotely. The most common of these include customer service and reservations, but there are some limited job offerings in corporate sales, marketing, technology and administrative services, too. For instance, recent remote job postings from American Airlines include data entry specialists, while Southwest Airlines recently posted a remote job for an artificial intelligence solutions architect. Your best bet, however, is getting in working directly with customers.

“Reservations and customer care is an example of a division that allows for select employees — based on role, seniority and location — to have the flexibility to work from home in a quiet, private space,” explains a Delta spokeswoman. “Their days look similar to their colleagues in the office, supporting our customers booking flights, looking for help and more. We use digital tools to ensure they have support and feel connected to the broader team.”

Today, there are three major carriers that tend to post work-from-home jobs: American Airlines, Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines. JetBlue also offers customer support jobs with a work-from-home component, but candidates must live in either Salt Lake City or Orlando, according to the company. This is because airlines like JetBlue like to bring people onsite for training and team building.

Who is a good candidate for work from home airline jobs?

Since the majority of remote airline jobs are either internal or external customer-facing, people who have customer service backgrounds will have a better chance of getting hired, explains Christine C. Durst, co-founder of RatRaceRebellion.com.

“As a rule, for those roles what they're looking for is somebody who has one to three years of experience in customer service. And it does not have to be customer service over the phone. It can be customer service working in retail, as long as you have customer facing customer service experience. Generally, that's enough to get the door open for an interview,” says Durst, who is a remote work expert.

Job candidates should also be very flexible in terms of scheduling since airlines, like most travel and hospitality companies, are open 24/7 365 days each year. Customer service agents may need to work overnight and on weekends, especially when they first start out. There’s also less wiggle-room when it comes to leaving the desk. You can’t pop out to the bank during the middle of a shift since you’ll be expected to answer the phones when you are working.

Finally, as most of the job listings explain, you should have good communications skills, the ability to stay calm under pressure (people who are trying to rebook a cancelled flight may yell a little bit!), and be comfortable working with technology. The airlines will provide you with a laptop, connectivity and a headset and you’ll be expected to learn the reservation and office software if you don’t already.

Related: How to Make Money from Home: Turn Your Idea Into A Million Dollars — No Experience Needed

What pay and perks can I expect?

Pay for customer service agents will differ depending on the airline. American Airlines has an average salary of $26.42 per hour for its New York-based agents, according to Indeed.com. Indeed says that the average JetBlue customer service representative makes about $15.34 an hour. These figures don’t include benefits, though.

A huge benefit? Airline employees and their immediate family such as spouses, children and parents do get to fly relatively cheaply or for free as part of their compensation. There’s a catch, though. All airline employees can fly standby if seats are available. This means if a flight is full, you’re not getting on. Plus, seats are given out based on tenure at the organization so newer employees may have to scramble to find a seat.

"If there are three empty seats and 20 standby employees, 17 will get bumped and they will all look for another flight, any flight, with empty seats," Sue Fogwell, a retired United flight attendant told Travel + Leisure.

Other airline job perks include health savings accounts, medical and dental coverage, adoption assistance, vision benefits, life and disability insurance and legal services. Most airlines also offer retirement benefits such as 401(k) savings plans and stock options.

Related: 7 Ways to Earn Extra Money Working From Home Based on Your Personality

For more work-from-home jobs, click through the links below!

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