A United Airlines flight attendant paused snack service to comfort a crying passenger. The customre broke down in tears on United flight 1807 from Chicago O’Hare to San Francisco on Sunday morning, expecting that she was going to miss her connection to China.
A crewmmeber in the middle of snack service stopped, knelt down in the aisle of the Boeing 757 to talk to her, then they hugged. Someone sitting nearby filmed the whole thing and posted it online. An inflight video that isn’t about emotional support animals, fights, or a passenger doing something they’ll regret in court filings!
The planned 6:46 a.m. didn’t actually depart until 7:51 a.m. after a long ground delay, but actually arrived just slightly late at 9:47 a.m. The flight attendant didn’t adjust any schedules or get the captain a more direct routing from air traffic control – he just made the passenger feel seen.
The passenger next to me was crying cause she might miss her connecting flight to China. A flight attendant was passing out snacks. He could’ve kept moving, but instead he stopped, bent down, talked to her, and gave her hope. They hugged, and let me tell you, THAT HUG WAS… pic.twitter.com/YbMsQ6Xv0M
— Gee Scott Sr. ️ (@GeeScottSr) February 8, 2026
Personally, I’d hate this. I’m not really a hugger. I always feel like it’s weird that a flight attendant will often apologize for bumping me by putting their hand on my arm (apologize for touching me by touching me?). Most people seem to feel like a flight attendant touching a passenger is ok, but a passenger touching a flight attendant isn’t. Obviously consent is key. Still, this would feel weird to me – but even I can recognize the human moment, how value this was to the passenger, and why this gives off a tremendous feel good.
The best part of this isn’t the hug anyway. It’s the kneeling down and treating the passenger like a person instead of an obstacle to the cart.
(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
Yes, Gary, empathy is strength, not weakness. Try telling that to some of your readers, though…
Yes this is a great story. What’s not known if arriving late the flyer still had a chance to make their connection. That’s where a good flight attendant can give advice on which way to go once deplanned. Get the passenger around the crowd to the front of the plane to deplane quicker. Asking a gate agent can they call down to the connection gate to advise a passenger is on their way.
If missed connection give information on a number to call or where the customer service desk is located.
In other words, while flight attendants can’t control flights they can provide valuable information.
I see empathy as a vital component for a successful flight attendant. Sure beats berating people for their disabilities. If only there was a way to teach this skill…
But that passenger IS an obstacle. An obstacle to me getting my beverage which is actually my emotional support component. There is absolutely nothing that the FA can do to help that person make a connection, and what a time for a FA to act human.
The way I read the headline, the phrase “Comfort Passenger” has two meanings. One, and the one you clearly meant, is engaging in the act of comforting. The other is comfort is a class of service. For example, some airlines call their premium seats “comfort.” There was an ambiguity in the headline.
Great job by the flight attendant.
Hey johnson, this is coming from empathy. If alcohol is your emotional support, it might be time to seek help. All the best to you.
FlightAware says that flight is scheduled to arrive at 9:40 am. A 7 minute delay on arrival is unlikely to cause a missed connection by itself. TSA is more likely to cause a misconnection but I doubt it in this case. The flight left the gate a minute early but was almost an hour late in taking off, probably due to backed up airplanes waiting to takeoff. The delay in taking off probably made the passenger extremely nervous. A look at the filed speed versus the actual speed shows that the pilot exceeded the filed speed by a small amount. That burned more fuel but there was enough to do it and it made the flight arrive only 7 minutes after the scheduled arrival time..
This is really just a nervous flier who is scared of missing a connection. In reality, the chance of a missed connection was very small. If there is IFE, the moving map would have shown the flight being 5-10 minutes late in arrival. Still, reassurance by the FA is nice.
Two weeks ago I had a reasonable connection, coming from MLA to FRA, connecting to flight to LHR. The only slowdown foreseen was immigration screening when entering Concourse B from A.
But then the gods took control. Our incoming gate changed from A24, near the tunnel connecting to B gates, to A62, about as far as you can get from tunnel. To seal the deal, the gods changed the outgoing from B24 to B48, I’m in reasonable health for a senior citizen; but with some achy legs, I couldn’t sustain the running.
So I asked the purser on incoming LH if he could help us out. He was about to serve meals to flight deck. Half an hour later the Captain came out to my seat. He said there would be people to meet us at our gate. We were first off the plane. He met us and escorted us to a large golf cart. Two other people were there with wheelchairs that they put on back of cart, and walked behind. The cart took us to near A14, where the tunnel was located. We were instructed to get in the wheelchairs, and taken down into tunnel. Since chairs are not allowed on moving walkways(2 of them), they pushed us the distance of two walkways.
From there, they pushed us to immigration. Got us around the lines to a gated area. German police opened the gate, took our passports, and cleared us. Then they pushed us to our gate. Made the flight with ten minutes before boarding. We were told we couldn’t have made it with bad legs and planes positioning.
I realize a long story, but having empathy, as @1990 said, is vital for a healthy society. The FA felt it. And did what he could. Kudos. As for you, @Mark Johnson, your remarks were duly noted by the readers here. Karma is a bitch, and will bite you when you least expect it.
That “delay” was probably already built into the flight time for taxiing. That’s why they arrived nearly on time.
@AlanZ — Yes, we need empathy, and air passenger rights legislation, like EU/UK 261, you know, for when ‘the gods’ are not in our favor. Glad you made that flight after all!
Kindest.
Costs nothing. Means everything.
you mean UA didn’t have seatback AVOD on this flight with flight info to let the person know that the flight was going to be on time?
or was this person going to meltdown no matter what?
just wait until AA and turn ORD’s taxiways into parking lots this summer.
there really WILL BE people missing connections all over AA and UA’s networks then. but UA will win because their FAs will bend the knee in the aisle because the company was more interested in picking a fight than running an industry leading operation.