The new social media influencer? Pilots and flight attendants at Southwest, United (2024)

Southwest Airlines pilot Ernie Meeks was at a crossroads when his daughter told him she might not want to be a professional pilot during her sophom*ore year at the University of North Dakota, a major pilot training school.

He could let her pursue her interest in art, or he could show her how beneficial a career in aviation might be.

“So I said, ‘OK, what can I do?’” he recalled. “As a dad, how can I influence her to stay in? I need to show her that this is such a great career.”

Meeks, now 49, knew basically nothing about social media when he started posting almost five years ago. He decided on a YouTube channel to show his daughter what he does on a day-to-day basis at a major U.S. airline. It started with learning just how to make and edit a video.

He jotted down notes and watched videos, trying to learn how to showcase what he did in the best possible way. He even took a class on editing videos to get his content just right to maybe influence his daughter and some of her classmates to stick with it. He created a channel called “Flying With Big Ern.”

All of his hard work paid off. He’s now amassed some 57,300 subscribers on YouTube and more than 130,000 followers on Instagram and has even started a podcast. But most importantly, his daughter stuck with flying.

“My whole intention behind it was to do it for a year, put out a year’s worth of content, and then end it after a year,” Meeks said. “But I’ve had so many people just in the terminals and (even) our own rampers are coming up and like ‘Hey, you’ve really inspired me, I’m starting my private pilot license.’ So it grew legs and just kind of grew to what it is today.”

Influencing and content creation have grown wildly popular among all ages, from teens seeking out the latest trend to adults trying out new recipes. It’s helped consumers pick what kinds of clothes to wear on vacations and what careers to choose. Meeks’ story is one of many from influencers that take on a new meaning with content creation that inspires others.

Aaron Dinin, who teaches entrepreneurship at Duke University, said “employee creators,” those who share their jobs online, have increased in popularity as companies have seen the value in promoting the work their employees do. Dinin’s courses focus on social marketing and personal brand building.

“I think why companies are starting to take it seriously, it’s because, well, you got people doing it anyway,” Dinin said. “Your employees can do this anyway, and you rather them do it with your ability to control or influence or support them to push out the brand messaging you want.”

He pointed to the example of Lebron James, power forward for the Los Angeles Lakers, who represents himself as a basketball star but also as an employee of a major business like an NBA team. Influencing allows a player like James to showcase what he does while representing the brand of the company. That’s what social media allows regular people to do — in some cases, present themselves just as publicly as an NBA star can.

Studies have shown how influencer marketing can greatly affect consumers.

In 2019, researchers Chen Lou of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Shupei Yuan of Northern Illinois University, surveyed social media users who followed at least one influencer. A key finding was that informative uses of influencer content generally have a positive effect on the trust the influencer’s followers put in influencer-branded posts, as well as their followers’ purchase intentions.

Another influencer at Southwest is first officer Lauren Jones, who found her love for sharing what she does when she began plane spotting on Instagram. Prior to Southwest, she was volunteer at Houston Hobby’s 1940 Air Terminal Museum and she began capturing a lot of photos while spending time at the airport and meeting up with other aviation fans in her spare time.

“I started flight training. I was spending all my time on flying,” Jones, 24, said. “So, I started posting, ‘This is my aviation journey.’”

She’d post about her flight training, every rating or certification, and seek input or study with peers she found online. Sometimes they would FaceTime and talk to other pilots about how to prepare ahead of any training flights. Her community of plane spotters evolved into pilots. Lauren has more than 15,800 followers on Instagram and is based in Houston.

Jones has also taken part in sponsorships, one example being with a brand of shirts she wears on the job. For just the price of a post, she was given a discount code.

Ashley Bain, spokeswoman at Southwest, said the airline encourages employees to share their experiences. The Dallas-based airline held a “Creator Day” in September and will be holding another this year.

“All of our employees are governed by our social media policy, and our role is to empower and encourage them as they inspire their audiences in their own unique ways,” Bain said. “We love seeing the many different ways our employees represent the brand whether in daily interactions with our customers or via social media channels.”

Other airlines also have taken advantage of social media savvy employees and given them opportunities to boost their content or showcase interesting parts of their jobs. Fort Worth-based American Airlines has a social media policy for its workers, requiring that employees not create official company accounts. Employees are also told not to post on company property.

Maggie Schmerin, chief advertising officer at United, said the airline has looked at how it can use its influencer-types to its advantage. Although United does have a social media policy, she said it is pretty “hands off.”

“We have really evolved as a brand on social in the last several years, and a big part of that has been really embracing our employee creators and also customer creators,” Schmerin said, noting the work United has done with travel content creators.

United sees it as an opportunity to show their workers more of what’s to come or even educate travelers on what’s going on at the company.

Captain Paul Holte at United Airlines, also known as “My Layover Life” on YouTube with more than 149,000 followers and 157,000 followers on Instagram, used his opportunity to show travelers how he would explore during his long layovers. He gained traction when he started showing his followers “behind-the-scenes” looks at his job.

He’s posted not only his layovers but also small tidbits such as how pilots can open the windows in the co*ckpit or scenes from inside United’s flight training and even the annoyances of the job like when crew scheduling assign him somewhere he didn’t want to go.

“It’s supposed to be inspiring, informative and also encouraging,” Holte, 45, said. “I tried to put at the end of my YouTube videos, I try to put on a little bit of encouragement and whether it’s a frequent flyer or prospective United pilot. Holte is based in Newark, but lives in Minneapolis.

Content creation is only going up from here.

Dallas-based LTK’s Ally Anderson said consumers are turning to creators for advice and recommendations. Anderson is the director of insights and strategy at LTK, a shopping app that uses content creators to promote deals and trends. Her company created a 2024 creator trend report, which showed a 21% surge in trust for creators from the general public compared with last year. Anderson has been with the company for more than a decade and has witnessed the rise in popularity of influencing.

A decade ago, it was all about bloggers, she said. Shortly after was the transition from blogs to social media. The third chapter is now spotlighted on creators using a trusted platform to meaningfully engage with their audience, she said. Generation Z is three times more likely to trust creators over advertisem*nts, LTK’s study showed.

“Influencers have with their community a connection that is only growing, and it’s only becoming more important,” Anderson said.

Spending on creator marketing is expected to reach over $35 billion this year, according to LTK.

David Ishmael, 33, otherwise known as “Aviator Dave,” began posting for himself. He has more than 11,000 followers on Instagram and has been to 50 countries so far, according to his bio. Ishmael lives in San Francisco, where he is based.

And just like his aviation colleagues in the industry, he said he hopes to inspire young professionals to see what they can achieve.

“(I’m) just really trying to show that the job is a lot more than one dimension,” Ishmael said “There’s so many different layers to our roles in the industry.”