Suggestions on what patterns/analysis to derive from Airlines Big Data
There really is no wrong answer here, but I recommend predicting flight cancellations (#22) and/or delays (25-29), since this is how I often see this data set being used. It could also have practical significance to you if you should ever find yourself flying to or departing from one of the worst offending airports/airlines. 

I'm not sure if you have a choice (perhaps your employer requires it), but don't use Map Reduce -- it's incredibly difficult to learn/maintain, it's slow, and on top of that it has become obsolete. Use something like Spark's ML lib (http://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/mllib-guide.html). It's much easier to use and is much more current.