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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUnited Airlines delays flight for man to see dying mother
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/06/travel/united-flight-delay-dying-mother/United Airlines delays flight for man to see dying mother
By Katia Hetter, CNN
updated 6:36 PM EST, Wed March 6, 2013
(CNN) -- If Kerry Drake missed his connecting flight, he wouldn't get to the hospital in time to say goodbye to his mother.
Drake got the news on the morning of January 24 that his mother, who had been ill for years from rheumatoid arthritis and had been especially sick the last four months, was dying.
To get to his mother in Lubbock, Texas, the San Francisco resident booked a United Airlines flight, with only 40 minutes between connecting flights in Houston. When his first flight was delayed, Drake thought he would miss his connecting flight to Lubbock, the last one of the day.
He started crying, obviously distraught. The flight attendants brought napkins for his tears, said they would do what they could to help, and most importantly, got his connecting flight information to the captain, he told CNN.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)annabanana
(52,791 posts)Hats off to the UA crew for this one.
zbdent
(35,392 posts)due to a person behind me having heart problems.
One d*ck near me got on his phone and was complaining about how we were delayed ...
I'm glad that we didn't have someone die on our plane, and I'm glad that they could delay the flight for this guy. Hope he didn't have the d*ck from behind me on his flight ...
frylock
(34,825 posts)great story about good people.
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)niyad
(112,435 posts)of humanity, is so rare that it makes the news?
RedSpartan
(1,693 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)But I'm not sure if your point is that good things happen so frequently, or that the media focusesso much on negative stories it doesn't have time left for the good things.
LAGC
(5,330 posts)The nice thing is, most of their flights out of their hubs in Chicago and Denver have later flights to the same destinations, so even if you miss a connecting flight, they can usually squeeze you in on another flight just a couple hours later.
I've only been significantly delayed once, when a flight out of Cleveland had some mechanical issues which caused me to miss my connecting flight in Denver, but they still managed to get me back home to Boise the same night.
Kudos to United for going the extra mile for that passenger.
siligut
(12,272 posts)Sometimes people NEED a little consideration.
littlemissmartypants
(22,418 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)The airline employees did keep a schedule, and should receive the highest marks on their evaluations...
mike dub
(541 posts)A handful of good people (flight attendants, gate agent, captain, etc) just making the call to help delay departure of the connecting flight. Nice, even in the corporatized (and the Corp. is King) America, to see individual employees making judgement calls/decisions, for the good of fellow human beings.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)and blessings and love to that man and his family.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)who was rushing to see his 2-year-old grandson for the last time (he had a major head injury because the mother's boyfriend had thrown him across the room).
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/01/14/southwest.pilot.holds.flight/index.html
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Nice example of corporate decency.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Kablooie
(18,572 posts)For all we know the corporation may discipline the employees involved for losing the company money.
In this case, probably not because of all the publicity but I'll bet that was the first instinct of some of the upper management.