is this controversial? the existence of cheap cross-country flights makes it much easier for people to move to the best location for their profession and fly back home to see everyone for easter and christmas (or whatever your big two holidays are).
People will move far away for their careers regardless but if the cheap long distance transportation exists then people will use it. The people who are working in one city and taking a flight back home every weekend are statistically nonexistent. The people who moved across the country and take a plane back a couple times a year to celebrate as major holiday or something are far more numerous but those people would have still moved without the cheap airfare.
Do you honestly not believe that people take ease of access to their loved ones when deciding where to work? I've had countless conversations with people talking about how they chose jobs to be closer to family. Transportation lets you convert the spatial metric of "closer" to a measure of time and cost instead. If flights double in price, that means seeing family half as often, which can easily make the difference between choosing job A over job B.
People move away primarily for economic benefits. No single mass migration in history of humanity has ever happened "because people wanted to be close to their family".
If you want anecdotes: I know hundreds of people that have moved away from their families and only a few that moved back after being elsewhere. (Literally about half of my graduation year at university have moved away) Most people I know, that moved, see their family back "home" only once or twice per year (summer vacation + winter holidays).
the point is that, when it's affordable and normal to fly great distances on a yearly/monthly basis, it causes people to spread out a lot more. then you end up with a chicken-egg scenario where people "need" cheap flights to see their spread out families, but the cheap flights also enable them to spread out further while still seeing each other.
odds are, you didn't happen to be born in the optimal location for your desired career. if you can get paid $20k more on the other side of the country and a flight home costs $200, you might find it pretty tempting to move. if the flight cost $2000 or you had to drive for three days to get home, it would be a lot less appealing for people who value seeing their family.
I don't understand how it's so hard to see that cheap flights make a big difference at the margin.
In fact - the drastic rise of living costs in economic centers indicates that people will take that move, even if that trip back is several hundred dollars and takes many hours.
I hate NYC and yet I recognise that it's the best location for fast travel to Europe... I travel back home about 2 times per year, though.
But implying that travel accessibility is the primary reason is absurd. If I had a good job offer from a company in LA - I would still take it. Even though my travel time to my mother would double(11 to 22 hours)