Well hey, they did their time and paid their debt to society right? Should they continue being unemployable for life, forced to return to a life of crime? Give those guys a second chance to earn an honest living and show the world they aren't defined by their past.
(Is it actually true that airlines hire people with criminal histories to handle luggage? I think they actually require clean background checks for those jobs, for obvious reasons, but such background checks are often the subject of the sort of criticism I just presented.)