Southwest pilot holds flight for family

wow what a horrible thing to happen to that family. It was good someone was able to do something nice for them
 
:clap:Way to go Southwest, that's remarkable. What a horrible thing for a family to go through.
 
Things like this are what is missing from the industry. So many times, agents have it POUNDED into their heads that they have to get that door closed, and their jobs are in serious jeopardy if they don't close that door at the exact moment that management wants it closed.

Sometimes we have to step back from the black & white "DO IT THIS WAY OR ELSE" world and see a few shades of gray.... yes, it was okay to delay this flight 12 minutes to get a grieving father onboard. It was the kind, human, decent thing to do. Let's do more of that. The man was at the airport 2 hours before departure. He did everything he was supposed to, and I'm glad he was helped out.
 
As an avid news reader I have not heard of any children being murdered in Denver recently - I would imagine that would be noted somewhere.
 
It is amzing the stuff that doesn't make the media and what does. I never heard any of this until this thread. I glad SWA was able to do the right thing regardless of their schedule. Way to go SWA!!!!

MQAORD you exactly correct about most gate agents and most airline mgmt.
 
Tragic story. Good for the family for the organ donation.

Kudos to S.W.! The others could learn from this.....
 
Good on them!

I can assure you, most airlines would not have held. I've been ordered to close the doors on people in wheelchairs, going to funerals, people going to weddings, children, elderly, you name it. It sucks, but it's not worth a write up for me. Unfortunately I don't have the authority to just hold a flight despite what people think, and most of the time the flight crew doesn't want to over-ride operations. It's just the way it is.
 
We've held a lot of flights for a variety of noble and non-noble (!) reasons at the big evil legacy I work for....
 
Good on SW. Our airline is very accommodating in times of need. We've had pilots pass away on overnights and the company sent CR7's to fly them home.
 
Doug Taylor said:
We've held a lot of flights for a variety of noble and non-noble (!) reasons at the big evil legacy I work for....
Click to expand...

Ditto for DH's airlline. I remember my sister was traveling FLL to DTW. She complained that they were delayed because they had to wait for passengers delayed from a CUN flight. Well how would you feel if you were in Customs and the flight didn't wait for you? I know one airline that shall remain nameless but just got bought by the airline in this thread did that to me (we got off our plane, the connecter was at the next gate and they shut the door in our faces--there were 50 of us connecting). Not only did I never fly them again, they got put on our corporate no fly list! So imagine how much that on time flight cost that company--50 misconnects and a corporate account lost.


The link isn't working so I don't know what happened in this case.
 
The popular perception, for whatever reason, is that SWA does a better job with this sort of thing than the Evul Legacies. Now, that may not be the case, I'm in no position to comment. But why does the perception exist? Serious question. The answer may be as simple as "Southwest does a better job of presenting itself as a 'maverick' (pew pew pew pew) and it's all PR theory". Or it may not be. My personal experience with SWA vs. Legacies would put me squarely in the "SWA is doing something right" camp, but I hardly hold myself out as the arbiter of the Correct Answer. Discuss!

PS. Whatever the circumstances at various companies, I'm sure the PIC was danging SOMETHING in front of something sharp in doing this. I commend him. I hope his mangement does, too.
 
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