Copilots in life and love Rachel and Matthew celebrate Valentine’s Day
Jetstar Adelaide-based pilots Rachel Blair-Wills and Matthew Wills have an uplifting love story for Valentine’s Day — their love took off when they met on the job and married.
SA News
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Love is in the air this Valentine’s Day for Jetstar pilots Rachel Blair-Wills and Matthew Wills.
The Adelaide-based pilots’ love story initially had a slow take off at Jetstar where they first met almost a decade ago, when Rachel, 33, was working at a check-in desk and pilot Matt, 37, got chatting.
Six months later Rachel was at training at the pilot academy, Matt was teaching, and love blossomed.
After a romance that included flying high in their jobs, they were engaged in 2019 and married at Glen Ewin Estate in March 2022.
The couple have had the joy of flying together multiple times since they married including Darwin-Bali, Adelaide-Melbourne and Adelaide-Sydney.
“When you’re at work, there’s a job to be done,” Matt said.
“In many ways it’s not different to flying with another pilot. But, it was still a good time.
“I’d say we’re very much a team at home, so coming to work together is just an extension of that.”
On juggling the personal and professional relationship, Rachel said there’s a very distinct boundary.
“Everything just falls into place and you go into the normal routine that you’re used to,” she said.
With Matt taking flight to Bali early this morning, Rachel will be spending Valentine’s Day with her second love, her dog, but the couple soon will be celebrating their third wedding anniversary.
The couple nominated the Whitsundays as a favoured romantic destination — Jetstar’s one day Valentine’s Day “fare frenzy” has one way flights from Adelaide to Proserpine from $129.
Valentine’s Day is full of religious tradition, folklore, assorted and conflicting legends, regional customs, proverbs, symbols such as hearts, doves and Cupid, and it appears in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, John Donne’s poetry and the nursery rhyme commencing “The rose is red, the violet’s blue.”
Its link to love and romance has fuelled a modern commercial industry of cards, flowers, chocolates, gifts, dinners and proposals.
Spending on gifts is tipped to smashed the half billion dollar mark this year for the first time and while chocolates, flowers and cards topped the list of planned gifts, one person in a Roy Morgan research survey said they planned to buy their partner a robot lawnmower valued at $3500.
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