Last Wednesday’s American Airlines flight 1208 from Burbank to Dallas – Fort Worth wound up arriving over 6 hours late, at 12:27 a.m. The issue was weather in Dallas… and DFW is known to stand for Doesn’t Function Wet.
Most passengers would have been beyond annoyed at the hassle, even though it was beyond the airline’s control. Yet the passengers on this flight were downright pleasant. And it’s because even though the delay wasn’t something American Airlines could prevent, how they managed the delay was in the very capable hands of the airline’s captain – who organized a pizza party for everyone on the plane.
Best part of today’s flight @AmericanAir the captain of the flight is so magnanimous that he ordered us all pizzas as we have been stuck on the flight @fly_BUR for over 6 hours and we never departed because of some complicated routing issues 🙂 pic.twitter.com/VQY2AW90l6
— Harsha wears a mask 😷 (@ShellZero) October 13, 2022
The pizza (unfortunately everyone got one single slice) – I was still happy that the captain went out of his way to provide this for us! pic.twitter.com/7PrNSx6W1p
— Harsha wears a mask 😷 (@ShellZero) October 13, 2022
The enthusiasm this passenger shows in the face of a six hour delay is inescapable, and that’s because small kindnesses go a long way. And because who doesn’t love pizza?
According to an American Airlines spokesperson, “We’re incredibly proud of the American Airlines team who take great care of our customers every day.”
As I understand it a decision to order pizza to a plane is entirely driven by the captain of the aircraft. There’s no formal “airline pizza policy,” but pilots can actually get reimbursed by the carrier when they do something like this. As I understand it, this isn’t something they ask permission for, and they do sometimes just come out of pocket without filing for an expense reimbursement (in which case the airline might not even know about it). Then again, you probably don’t like your employer’s expense reimbursement process, either!
