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JetBlue founder's son arranges onboard date leading marriage

JetBlue founder's son arranges onboard date leading marriage
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Gary Leff Chief Financial Officer | View from the Wing

Last year, I wrote, “Wait, Dave Neeleman’s son is married to the reigning Mrs. America and they have 8.1 million followers on Instagram, over a million subscribers on YouTube and nearly 7 million followers and over 100 million likes on TikTok?”

One Mile at a Time reports on airline CEO Dave Neeleman’s son and how he ended up dating and marrying his wife. She is profiled in the Sunday Times: “Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children).”

Her father-in-law may have founded or led Morris Air (sold to Southwest), WestJet, JetBlue Airways, Azul, Breeze Airways, and owned 45% of TAP Air Portugal, but his daughter-in-law is far more influential online.

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Hannah Neeleman, known to her nine million followers as Ballerina Farm, milks cows, gives birth without pain relief, and breastfeeds at beauty pageants. The question arises: Is this an empowering new model of womanhood — or a hammer blow for feminism?

Apparently her husband pursued her for a date for six months. They ended up booked on the same JetBlue flight from Salt Lake City to New York JFK. He arranged to have them seated next to each other.

He was 23 and she was nearly two years his junior when they were introduced by a mutual friend at a college basketball game. “I saw her and I was ready to go,” he says. “Sign me up. I was thinking, ‘Let’s get married.’ But she wouldn’t go on a date with me for six months.”

One day she mentioned to Daniel that she was taking the five-hour flight from Salt Lake City to New York back to Juilliard. She didn’t realize his dad owned the airline. “So Daniel was like, ‘I’m on that same flight!’” she says. “I remember checking in and them saying, ‘You’re 5A and you’re 5B.’ I just thought no way; that’s crazy!” Daniel smiles: “I made a call.” He had pulled strings at JetBlue. And so began their first date.

One Mile at a Time describes ‘pulling strings’ as ‘creepy’. However, would he even have needed special connections as the son of the airline’s then-deposed founder?

Knowing what flight she was on made it easy for him to call reservations with their seat assignments verified.

Hang up; call back; ask to change seats next to hers if available.

Or change her seat next to his if needed.

‘Strings’ here would only be necessary if there weren’t any available seats next to each other requiring another passenger's relocation for his plan execution. Given this is JetBlue without first class (no Mint either), it doesn’t seem difficult! Creepy perhaps but doesn’t require special connections or 'strings' after all.

Some years ago an Air India captain refused flying unless scheduled with particular female co-pilot obliging him which indeed was inappropriate!

When dating my wife during business trip confirming upgrade cross-country San Francisco backflight into first class surprised upon airport check-in discovery delighted deciding amazing rather than creepy despite lacking confirmation number knowledge suggesting potential dual outcomes otherwise!

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