About Us

Airline Crew Discount is the crew-curated home for airline staff discounts, pilot and cabin-crew travel deals, layover guides and aviation lifestyle stories. It is written and edited by Captain AL, an active Boeing wide-body Captain with more than 19,000 flight hours, 70+ countries flown and 32 years inside a major European legacy carrier. Every recommendation on this site is filtered through one rule: would I send my own crew to this deal?

Meet Captain AL

Hi, I’m Captain AL. I fly long-haul Boeings for a major European legacy airline, and I’ve been part of the airline industry for 32 years — first as a young pilot building hours, then as a First Officer across the fleet, and today in the left-hand seat of the Boeing 777 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I currently hold type ratings on the Boeing 777 (all variants) and Boeing 787 (all variants). Earlier in my career I held type ratings on the Boeing 767-300 and the Boeing 747-400 — and on the 747 I served as a Type Rating Instructor (TRI) and Type Rating Examiner (TRE), training and checking other captains on type. Across all of it I’ve logged more than 19,000 flight hours in roughly 70 countries.

I built airlinecrewdiscount.net for one reason: airline crew — pilots, flight attendants, ATC, ground handlers, dispatchers, gate agents, travel agents — spend their lives moving other people around the planet, but the deals tailored to us are scattered, outdated, or hidden behind closed Facebook groups. I wanted one trusted, public hub where crew can find vetted discounts, real layover advice, and honest gear reviews, written by someone who is still on the line.

About my pen name

I publish under “Captain AL” because my airline does not authorise active flight-deck crew to comment publicly. The hours, ratings and stories on this site are real — the byline is simply a respectful workaround that keeps me compliant with my employer while still letting me help the wider crew community.

Why Airline Crew Discount exists

Airline crew sit on a paradox. We have access to:

• ID90 / ZED-fare staff travel on hundreds of carriers
• Crew rates at thousands of hotels and car-rental brands
• Industry-only travel insurance, loss-of-licence cover and gear pricing
• Insider knowledge of airports, transit cities and short layovers

…and yet most of us still book through generic comparison sites or pay full rate because finding the right crew offer takes longer than the layover itself. Airline Crew Discount fixes that. Every week I publish:

• Crew-only deals on hotels, car rental, lounges, insurance and travel gear
• Layover guides for hubs we actually fly to — Bangkok, Dubai, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Singapore, New York, Los Angeles, São Paulo, Tokyo, and more
• Crew lifestyle articles on jetlag, sleep, fitness on the road, family life, and life after the line
• Honest gear reviews — suitcases, headsets, watches, packing systems — tested in the galley, the flight deck and the layover hotel, not in a marketing studio

Beyond the cockpit

Off duty, you’ll find me:

• Travel photography. I shoot the world from the jumpseat, the hotel balcony and anywhere in between. Many of the images on this site are mine.
• Family travel. I’ve learned how to turn ID90 standby chaos into proper family trips — and I share those hard-won tactics here.
• Languages and cultures. Thirty years of layovers in 70+ countries leave a mark. I love picking up the basics of a local language before every trip.
• Volunteer firefighting. I serve as a volunteer firefighter with a brigade in and around a major city in the Netherlands, qualified to drive the full fleet — from small fast-response vehicles to large pump engines and aerial ladder trucks. The same calm-under-pressure focus that long-haul flying demands carries over well to an unexpected call-out.
• Vintage aircraft, gliders and instruction. When I’m not flying jets, I instruct gliders and single-engine piston aircraft, and fly vintage types for fun — the kind of stick-and-rudder flying that keeps a long-haul pilot honest.
• Tech, AI and building this site. I’m a hands-on builder. Airline Crew Discount is designed, written, optimised and maintained by me, with help from modern AI tooling used responsibly — never to fake expertise, only to publish faster and clearer.

Who we serve

Airline Crew Discount is written for the whole aviation and travel workforce:

• Airline pilots and student pilots (cadet, FO, Captain, training captains, examiners)
• Cabin crew — flight attendants, pursers, in-flight managers
• Air traffic controllers (en-route, approach, tower) and ATC trainees
• Airport staff — gate agents, dispatchers, operations, station managers
• Ground-handling and ramp crew, baggage and cargo teams
• Airline head-office staff — HR, scheduling, revenue, IT, marketing
• Travel-industry employees — travel agents, tour operators, OTAs, hotel and cruise crew

If you carry a crew ID, an ID90/ZED ticket, or a travel-industry badge, you’re in the right place.

How we earn (full transparency)

Airline Crew Discount is independent and self-funded. To keep the site free for crew, we earn a small commission from selected affiliate partners — hotel groups, car-rental brands, insurance providers, luggage and gear makers — when readers book or buy through links on this site. You never pay more because of a link here, and we only partner with companies that offer a genuine crew benefit. Sponsored articles, when they appear, are clearly marked as such.

For the full breakdown, see our affiliate disclosure and editorial policy.