I'm an airline employee who flies for free, sometimes even in business class. It's an incredible perk, but there's one major catch.

I'm an airline employee who sees the world for essentially free thanks to my flight benefits. Shayan Hossain I'm an airline employee who flies essentially for free on a whim, but only if a seat is open. I can often see flight loads ahead of time, but piecing together flights can be a game of Tetris. I've gotten stuck overseas for days and sometimes have to buy a costly ticket home. From the outside, flying standby as an airline employee — what we call "non-revving" in the industry — looks like unlimited, practically free flights, whenever you want, wherever you want. It almost sounds too good to be true. I've flown business class to Switzerland for a weekend just to ride a train past the Matterhorn. I've hopped on a semi-private jet with JSX like it was an Uber.