I tend to focus on 4 main criteria:  Job growth, great healthcare, within 30 minutes to an International Airport (or one that has Southwest Airlines), and low taxes

Ever notice that before holidays when a lot of people travel, cost for gas and airline tickets go up?

The former CEO of Southwest airlines: "We tell our people, 'Don't worry about profit.

.$200 in incidentals per year credit on your favorite airline. 

There is even a small airline here that goes exclusively back and forth to CA, carrying all of them.  

unfortunately for me I am a wanna be airline pilot.. so the best I could do is buy airplanes now you talk about a big hole to poor money down...

You can't do this anymore but you used to be able to get cold hard cash in the form of dollar coins shipped from the US Mint paid for with a credit card with no fees, free shipping no less.I, um, heard this was a great way to reach minimum spend for signup bonus airline miles

I once lived in a community in CA that had about 50 airline pilots in it.. based out of SFO.. and after golf of course they did not want to talk about work they talked about investing.. and there are some sponsor out there that just cater to airline pilots.. so theory..

If this was a great idea, then the airlines wouldn't be charging baggage fees and everything else they can to strip the ticket price to the lowest possible. 

The flip side of that is you are hard pressed to find a 1.5% deal in a decent neighborhood, but there are plenty of 1%ers.We have some of the best schools in the country, safest streets, diverse economy, lots of large and small employers and are not dominated by a single sector, which probably contributes to our stable prices (3M, Target, Honeywell, General Mills, Delta Airlines Etc.)