Wow, what's the back story of this wife / husband scheme!?!?

WO Pilot recruiter(s) with ambition...husband wife both on the recruitment team-one got picked up and brought the other along for the ride. Pretty savvy on their part. That particular WO took it pretty poorly... VP of flight OPS and other management were pretty ****ed AA hired the pilot outside of the flow and took two recruiters while they were trying to expand.

I wouldn’t say it’s abnormal though. I know a couple of cases where AA pilot recruitment offered applicants interviews because their spouses were on property.

Not limited to AA either, pretty normal practice.

I have damn near every box checked and the feedback I got was your best chance for off the street hire is to come from another mainline. Go get a job at Delta and then update your app.

True civilian thru n thru.

Lol, if I ever move to Dallas I'm totally making my wife get a job in AA HR.

Does the spouse have to be flight dept too?

According to my wife (works for OAL), HR works best for what it's worth.
Some companies do place high value on close relatives with the company (aka "legacy reference") though

Just be aware, flying for hire outside the company (including flight instructing on the side) has historically been banned by the company.

Is there any business value in hiring children of company employees? Or do they just like to do those folks a favor?

I guess the idea is the people are more likely to stick around

FWI, it's not just 'historically' or via policy, it's banned via FM1 which makes it an FAA violation. I do know MANY guys picking up work on the side without issue but you should know the boundaries you are pushing if you're going to do it.