I concur. Back in college, I knew a guy who had his pilot's licence but was working as a retail store's assistant manager. When I asked him about it, he told me he wanted to be a commercial pilot, but you have to log a certain amount of flight time to even be considered for a job like that - which can be both time consuming and expensive. That's why so many pilots are former military as it allows them to accrue a significant amount of flight time at low personal cost.
So, yeah, Travolta's dream is to be a pilot, but he doesn't have the means to become one. It's like working as a waiter while auditioning for a acting roles. It would be nice if you could just spend all day every day auditioning, but most people still have to pay the bills.