Southwest Airlines pilot holds plane for murder victim’s family
It’s easy to be an airline industry critic in an era of “no waivers, no favors” and fees on top of fees. It’s easy to paint airlines as heartless corporations that treat us like self-loading cargo.
But every now and then, you hear a story that turns you into an adoring fan. Like Nancy’s story.
Go read the story. If this is true (I checked Snopes, nothing on it), then Southwest Airlines deserves every bit of praise they have coming to them. There's a lot of bad in this world, and a lot of companies act as though they actively loathe their customers (HK, call your office...). Again, assuming the story is true as written, Southwest Airlines is the exception to the rule here.
And if it's not true, well, then, it should be - it'd be nice to believe there are still good people (and companies) in this world.
That is all.
12 comments:
Dammit, there's dust in the air around here or something.
I've always found Southwest to be more than helpful. When I was traveling a lot in the military, they would routinely hold flights for a few minutes to make sure a group of soldiers made it home on time. I always try to fly Southwest before I even consider flying American or Delta.
I hope it is true. We need more stories like this. It should be the rule, not the exception.
AvWeb had a breif summary up: http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Southwest_Captain_Delays_Takeoff_For_Bereaved_Grandfather_203954-1.html
and the Denver post has an article on it, which makes it as close to confirmed as is likely to get.
http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_17101952?source=commented-news
I think I have something in my eye.
I can't for the life of me understand why the other dipshit airlines have not begun to follow Southwest's business model. All this AND they're safe and profitable.
Saw this on Fox News over the weekend. Take it for what it's worth, but I'd say it's legit.
I read about this on OldNFO's blog yesterday. IIRC, he either knows the pilot personally (he's a former aviator) or via a mutual friend, so I suspect it's true.
http://oldnfo.blogspot.com/2011/01/got-this-from-old-squadron-buddy-now.html
I tried tracking down the story, but every single thing points to the elliott blog post, so as far as I can tell it's the sole originator of the story. That doesn't mean it's fake, it just means it's a good story and I personally am holding judgment until I see confirmation from a known legit source. The story about the grandson, Caden Rodgers is indeed true. He was body slammed by the prick live-in-boyfriend of the mother and later taken off of life support at the request of the family, organs donated to other children.
The story was in the Daily Mail over here in the UK for about 3 days.
I think it probably is... SWA is pretty good about things like that if they know far enough ahead... UA and Continental also will and have held flights. AA and Delta, not so much...
Raptor, the one I posted was about carrying a deceased soldier home, not the same fight Jay is talking about.
chiefjaybob: "I can't for the life of me understand why the other dipshit airlines have not begun to follow Southwest's business model."
Southwest does a lot of things to keep its costs down. They only fly into less expensive airports (ie, into Manchester but not into Logan); they operate only one type of aircraft; they cut all kinds of little side dishes that are SOP on other airlines. In many cases the bigger airlines aren't able to do the same; it would cost too much.
[brief interlude for ROFL after typoing 'airlines' as 'airliens']
As for whether this story is true or not: there's also a story about it at ABC's website, and the Daily Mail story has direct quotes from the man.
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