Great Things Are Happening In The Air, Special Moments Trump The Misery

by Gary Leff

It seems like all we hear about are the negative stories in air travel. Some of that is how prevalent those are. Some of it is that they’re more ‘newsy’. But the truth is that there are special moments happening in airports and on board planes every day, throughout the day.

Air travel connects the world. People fly for a purpose. They’re visiting friends and family, attending to important business, and connecting. Sometimes they connect with each other, through the randomness of seat assignments. And sometimes it’s the little connections with employees along the way, because it’s one human helping out another and taking a moment engage as people.

Seven moments shared to social media with photos or video stood out to me in just twenty four hours, showing that in a single day there’s a lot of good in the air, and on the ground.

Here are (4) moments from Southwest Airlines. You sort of expect this from Southwest. I’ve only experienced this once but for some it seems to be a daily occurrence.

The remarkable thing is that it isn’t just Southwest. Here are (3) moments from that same 24 hour period on United.

Despite a corporate purpose of ‘caring for people on life’s journey’ I couldn’t find anything similar shared to social media about American Airlines during this window (although American does have Taylor Tippett). And there usually seems to be less social chatter about Delta Air Lines outside of long telephone hold times.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. I’m a Ticket Agent for AA and yesterday I waited on a couple flying to Jamaica to celebrate their 25th anniversary. While we didn’t throw a big celebration, it certainly filled me with joy.

  3. Thanks Gary for sharing these. Really nice to see people making a difference by going the extra mile to create positive memories!

  5. Wow, “trump” in a blog article headline and the comment count didn’t skyrocket like crazy in the blog article. What happened?!?

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