Kerry Drake needed to get to Lubbock, Texas, and fast. His mother was dying, so he booked the next flight from San Francisco.
“I knew this itinerary was a risk because the stopover in Houston was only about 40 minutes, and my connecting flight was the last flight to Lubbock that day,” he told journalist Christopher Elliott. “But I needed to get there as soon as possible, so I took the risk.”
As it turns out, United flight 667 was delayed leaving San Francisco and Drake was visibly distraught.
A flight attendant, Sofia Lares, tried to comfort him. “She said she would do everything she could and brought extra napkins for my tears,” Kerry says.
Another flight attendant, Lan Chung, asked Kerry flight number and relayed it to the captain.
When he finally reached Houston he realized the flight crew and ground staff had conspired to help him. “As I was running up to the gate, the gate agent saw me coming and shouted, ‘Mr. Drake? We’ve been expecting you’,” he told Elliott.org. “She waved me onto the plane without looking at my boarding pass.”
Read the full story on Elliott’s customer service blog.
This is not the only time an airline showed excellence in customer caring:
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