It’s easy for us to complain when airlines underwhelm us. We all have had miserable experiences when traveling and we certainly are not shy about sharing our grief with fellow travelers. However, there were 2 recent stories that gives us hope that airlines and their staff in the US do sometimes do very kind things for their passengers.
First, a family was flying from Phoenix, Arizona on their way to their father’s funeral in Memphis, Tennessee. The family flew on Delta Airlines and were connecting through Minneapolis. Their first leg experienced a 90 minute delay, meaning they had less than 10 minutes to catch their connecting flight to Memphis. Of course they arrived at their connecting gate just as the jetway was pulling back and the plane was beginning to taxi toward the runway. This meant that they family would not be able to make it out to Memphis in time to bury their father. When they were told that their flight could not return to the gate to pick them up, they started screaming, crying and waving their hands in the window to try and get the pilot’s attention. It turns out it worked.
The pilot tells FOX 10 he didn’t need words. He saw the tears, the sadness, the desperation on their faces and when he was told the family was on their way to their father’s funeral, the pilot did something unprecedented. He went back to let them on the plane.
Second, a mother was flying with her 9-month old son for the first time. She was understandably stressed. The mother said that her son was fidgety and fussy and this caught the attention of a Southwest Airlines flight attendant.
About 45 minutes into the flight, Aiden didn’t want any part of sitting with us. He couldn’t sit still. Anissa happened to be walking by, and Aiden got so excited to see her. She looked and me and asked me if I minded if she held him. It wasn’t any longer than 10 minutes, but just to see how good she was with him and how happy he was waving to everyone really was amazing for us.”
The mother shared this with Southwest on their Facebook page, and her post has since received over 410,000 likes and over 55,000 shares.
There is something to be said about hearing positive stories like this, especially since travel can be such a stressful experience when things don’t go right. Here’s to hoping there will be more of these types of stories to share in 2016!
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