Southwest Airlines pilot holds plane for murder victim’s family | Hacker News Reader

Southwest Airlines pilot holds plane for murder victim’s family

consumertraveler.com

121 pointsyock47 comments

Although I commend Southwest and everyone involved, I'm more bothered by why he couldn't have been afforded even basic additional attention to get him on the flight on time without having to delay take-off. I'm not saying they did the wrong thing, but once you delay a previously on-time flight, you start affecting other people on that flight who might have tight connections.

The fact that they couldn't get him pushed through in the two hours he was there before the flight is the problem. The pilot just fixed the problem that shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. The entire support/service system let this guy down until the very last possible moment.

Pilot only waited 12 minutes and could probably make some/all of that up in the air. But you are right, 2 hours waiting in line is bullshit.

Do not complain about a two-hour security line for a domestic flight. Do you want the terrorists to win? I will wait 15 hours and submit to a TSA full body cavity search if it makes the flight safer.

Some may argue that waiting 15 hours and being submitted to a cavity search means the terrorists have already won.

And they would be very, very late in making that argument.

Yes, more people would die from stress than terrorists could kill.

It's hard to know these days, especially online, but my sarcasm detector went off for the grandparent post.

Is there a missing </sarcasm> there?

You know, the other day I got through security with a water bottle. Suppose it wasn't a water bottle!?

EDIT: I'm just saying. When it comes to airport security there hasn't been a right way they've done it. After the TSA patdown issues they're being so lenient now backing off that they're letting large canteen bottles of water slip by unnoticed. I mean, sure water bottles should be allowed, but, certainly not unnoticed...

I'm not saying they did the wrong thing, but once you delay a previously on-time flight, you start affecting other people on that flight who might have tight connections.

Hopefully if they were informed of the situation, every person on the plane would acquiesce to a 12 minute delay. I know I would.

That's not really the point though. These decisions are not made democratically with the passengers' input; passengers have no say in the matter, regardless of whether or not they are informed of the situation. A bit of extra attention should have been paid to this one passenger's situation, which would have made things better for him and had zero impact on the other passengers. The other passengers may have their own reasons for needing to be somewhere on time, possibly just as important to them as this man's situation was to him. A few extra minutes of service is all this guy needed very early in the process to make the whole situation a non-issue for everyone involved.

That's what makes this stuff so tough, tho. How many folks on that plane are in the midst of a personal emergency of their own? From my experience, it's rarely zero. Maybe someone on that flight is going to miss a connection to see their mother for the last time? Or the premature birth of a child? I've had both sit next to me on flights just this year. Not everyone lets the airline know what's going on.

As for why special accommodations couldn't be made for this guy, lets use what I like to call the "honeymoon principle." It used to be that when you went to Vegas on your honeymoon you simply had to tell everyone (from the desk clerk at the hotel to your waiter at dinner) that you were on your honeymoon. They went out of their way to make it special.

Then everyone found out about it. Two things happened: 1) a LOT more people went to Vegas on their honeymoon and 2) every couple told everyone that it was their honeymoon wether it was true or not.

So now, you might as well not even bother. Honeymoon's in Vegas aren't special, they won't even get you a room with a view.

It's the same thing here. In the course of a single day there are literally thousands of emergencies (both real and imagined) that people are tending to. How do you decide which ones get to skip the security line? How do you decide which ones get ride the golf cart to the gate? You can't, because as soon as you do everyone has a heartbreaking story to tell.

I wish it wasn't so, but lets face it, people suck.

I've never believed that this was an acceptable rationale for treating everyone the same. A lot of people suck. So what? Punishing the whole because of the depravity of the minority (or even the majority) is the kind of least common denominator nonsense that causes customer service to suffer in the first place.

Reminds me of when I got irritated at a long wait for my doctor's appointment. Dang it, I made an appointment! Finally the doc came out and apologized profusely for the delay, saying he had a patient come in with a life threatening allergic reaction.

My irritation promptly vanished and I told the doc he had no need to apologize for doing what was right.

My Dr is always 2 or more hours late, so I came to an understanding with her staff. I always ask for the last appointment of the day, get an ETA from the receptionist, and usually show up half an hour after that, say 7pm for a 5:30 appointment. Last time we spent 2 hours with the appointment and just chatting. (We like each other.)

The real advice: get a woman doctor. They are almost always more attentive, if not more punctual.

Out of curiosity, who would get to decide who gets "additional attention"? The airline? If that were the case then you could expect to see an "additional attention in screening for only $25" upsell on airline ticketing sites within a week...

Many airlines offer bereavment fares already, with straightforward requirements on providing documentation to legitimize the request.

It would seem to be easy enough to also offer "golden tickets" to expedite security screening under these specific circumstances.

I lost my father several years ago, three days before Christmas. My family and I flew to Nevada to lay him to rest at a family plot, I remember being hyper-sensitive to everything at the airport.

Holiday decorations? Terrible, tacky, and painful. Happy travelers made me think how long it would take to regain an enjoyment of the season. Travelers frustrated or annoyed for no good reason made me want to throw punches.

There are little things, and big things. Airport security and travel logistics are little things you want no part of while dealing with big things.

This is where you just need to give your employees the very BASIC ability to make decisions on their own. If someone comes up to you and says "My grandson is going to be removed from life support and I need to make sure I catch my flight", you should know the difference between that and "I'm late because traffic was heavier than I expected" and act accordingly. At the very least, employees should know an extreme case when they encounter one and at least take it to a supervisor for escalation, if needed.

I don't disagree, but who's "They?" who should have got him pushed through faster?

The airline doesn't control anything but the departure of the aircraft.

The issues with this guest getting TO the aircraft are in the hands of security and the airport itself.

THe ticketing agent could have been given an escort to put him to the front of the security lines. As little as two years ago this was done for me a couple of times. By no means was there any sort of emergency other than the possibility that the line may cause me to miss my flight. The airline was Mexicana (out of business now). They stopped doing that in favor of a "tough shit" in the past 18 months or so, and I end up having to pay ~$200 to reschedule.

Google cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome...

This is a great example of what happens when you give your employees the freedom and authority to do what they think is right, instead of enforcing a blanket set of rules. People are naturally compassionate and willing to do extraordinary things. It often is mostly a matter of getting out of their way to let them do what comes naturally, and rewarding them when they do something amazing.

Imagine what his experience would have been like had the other people he'd encountered had felt similarly empowered.

Chicken: Does great customer service make a company great or does a great company insist on great customer service?

Egg: Who cares?

I aspire to build a company with raving fans like Southwest's.

Nice story. Thank you, OP.

Well put.

And all great companies have great people, which is yet another chicken/egg question.

Incredible story. So happy this pilot got the proper recognition and appreciate he deserved, instead of scolding him for making the plane late. Southwest really is just far and away the best run airline of its class. They don't treat the people who fly on the airline like crap, and they are rewarded for it.

This kind of story does a lot to assuage the sort of misanthropic "it's-end-of-the-world-and-people-don't-care-about-each-other" feeling I normally get when often dealing with big corporations. It's awesome to know that people still do the right thing to help other people even when those helpful things might inconvenience their business. It's just heartwarming.

Also, it makes good business sense. Especially for Southwest to say they're "proud" of the pilot for doing it. They ought to be proud. It shows they actually care, and that's what builds long term relationships with customers.

Looks like it's already loading slow.

Alternate source: http://www.elliott.org/blog/southwest-airlines-pilot-holds-p...

So I think the bigger story here is not that the pilot held the flight (really, it's not all that exceptional for a pilot to hold a flight for a late arriving passenger), but that Southwest is sophisticated enough to relay "hey, this dude's grandson was just murdered" to the pilots and flight crew.

It's also worth stating that even though other pilots on other airlines would have done the same thing, good for that particular pilot for doing it on that particular day.

If only every employee was so empowered to provide such a high level of customer service.

I fly Southwest almost exclusively because their policies make me feel like a human - particularly their no-change-fee / full-credit policy. Don't charge me $100 for changing an entry in your database!

> Don't charge me $100 for changing an entry in your database!

Maybe they use Oracle. :-P

I basically exclusively fly Southwest now. They fly pretty much everywhere I need to go from Denver and they've never really let me down.

They've made some changes to their frequent flyer program that kind of suck (apparently it's now based on what you spend, not flight segments)... but I can deal with that.

I'm excited to see what the pending merger with Airtran looks like. Hopefully it will extend their reach and maybe give them some routes down in the Carribean:)

This is not hacker news.

It certainly isn't specifically tech, but it does show how much treating a customer properly can have a huge effect on that customer and thus your business. Because of that pilot, Southwest is now getting a ton of great free press. Seems like a great lesson for any startup. Also, the article mentions that the flyer who was delayed was a repeat customer (as he had a number of free flights). You should treat your loyal customers well.

One of the hallmarks of successful people is that they can derive useful lessons from practically anything. "Is there a lesson in this story?" is a terribly low bar for what should comprise hacker news; it excludes practically nothing.

I agree with you, but I don't think that's what's happening here - the main content of the article is about an interesting and remarkable approach to customer service from a company that every business can learn from. The format for it is as from from "hn material" as you can get, but the content is there. I agree that you can find lessons in practically any story, but I think it's whether or not the core of the story is relevant to hn that distinguishes what's appropriate to post here, not how it appears on the surface.

True, but I know that I come here more for the comments than the stories. The fact that there are people who can learn from almost anything around here makes it even more interesting to come here and get their insight.

So maybe the 'bar' should be set based on the comments: get rid of the stories that trigger lots of griping and keep everything that generates good comments.

Yes it most certainly does. How many articles have been on the front page about Zappos's insanely over the top customer service. No it doesn't having anything to do with coding, but it has everything to do with starting a company.

If don't think that customer service stories belong here you don't really get all aspects of starting a company.

Everyone here should aspire to have their employees go above and beyond like this

"As my husband walked down the Jetway with the pilot, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

The pilot responded with, “They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”

I'd agree with you if this were just a link to a local news story covering the event, but since the bulk of this article is an anecdote about two ways of doing customer service -- compassion vs. indifference -- and what a difference it can make, especially when the company stands behind it - there's definitely a business lesson to be learned here.

Hacking isn't only about software. He showed up 2 hours in advance and was still unable to board his flight in time. If any system is screaming out for a hack, it's the screening process in US airports.

Short version: Given the fact that it's sitting on top of the front page with 87 points, the community seems to disagree.

Long version: I don't specifically come to HN to read about why Google stopped doing something with H-2xx in Chrome. I don't specifically come to HN to read about Clojure 1.2. I don't specifically come to HN to read about a fantastic human interest story based on excellent customer service and human decency. What I do come to HN for is the over all quality of the content whether it's technical in nature or not.

It is an extremely narrow view to hope that articles submitted to HN are only technical or related to whatever narrow "belongs on HN" viewpoint you hold. I enjoy reading about Clojure but I also enjoy reading about a tiny little thing going right for humanity because one person (and by extension a huge company) did what was right and I think the community at large does as well.

>Given the fact that it's sitting on top of the front page with 87 points, the community seems to disagree

Since we can't downmod, it just means 87 people in the community were really moved and upvoted.

I don't think HN should be strictly tech either (though I do absolutely think "how I built/sold X" is much better than "here's my opinion on Y"), but I don't see how this story is HN material.

>Since we can't downmod, it just means 87 people in the community were really moved and upvoted.

Sure but certainly that's one of the risks you accept as a community member here.

The guidelines here say "Anything that would gratify one's intellectual curiosity". Maybe it's a stretch but I have intellectual curiosity about how businesses treat their customers. Seeing a large, successful corporation like Southwest treat a customer with dignity and humanity satisfies my curiosity in the same way. Granted, this is a very specific case but I think the concept is generalized to the bigger picture. It just happens to be wrapped up in a reasonably heartwarming anecdote.

Actually, despite having all these points, it looks like one of the moderators hung a stone around its neck and kicked it off the plank. It's nowhere to be found on the front page.

It's easy to get points with emotional hot-button stories here, just like anywhere else. It's not a sign of 'worthiness'.

What a coincidence that Nancy was the step-mother of the ticketing agent!

Think 'Step Mother' to her husband's daughter. This would explain why she wasn't the one rushing to denver and rather made it so the father could make it.

The storytelling isn't very clear, but I think the author meant she is the step-mother of the mother/daughter that lost the 3-year old son.

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