# United Airlines helps man get to see his dying mother



## jis (Mar 10, 2013)

Since there is almost an unwritten tradition here to post only negative things about air travel, I thought I'd break that tradition just for the heck of it 



> United Airlines delays flight for man to see dying mother
> 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.
> ...


You can read the whole article at:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/06/travel/united-flight-delay-dying-mother/index.html


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## PRR 60 (Mar 10, 2013)

Thanks for posting that. Also credit to CNN for violating the unwritten rule with a positive news story about air travel.


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## RampWidget (Mar 10, 2013)

I agree, that is an amazing example on UA's part of taking care of the customer.

Amtrak itself has accomplished similar customer service feats, at least one that I personally witnessed several years ago. A pax on #53 became critically ill enroute and the crew radioed the CSX DS to have EMS meet the train at Rocky Mount (a not uncommon occurrence).

The uncommon began next. A second pax, a surgeon from Maryland who happened to be traveling on #53 with his wife, was treating the ill pax while on onboard. The doctor detrained at RMT (unbeknownst to his wife) and continued to treat the ill woman while in the ambulance to the hospital.

The Amtrak ticket agent at RMT had the CSX DS notify #53's crew that the physician had detrained and asked them to notify his wife what had happened.

The ticket agent then secured sleeper space on #97 and made arrangements to have the physician picked up from the hospital and brought back to the RMT station in time to board #97 - all at no additional charge.


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## jis (Mar 10, 2013)

Here is some more on it from FlyerTalk:

http://www.flyertalk.com/the-gate/blog/15285-flight-delayed-for-passenger-to-visit-dying-mother.html

and from Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-elliott/united-airlines-holds-plane_b_2820787.html

Indeed I have seen similar at Amtrak too.

On my last flight from Newark to Delhi I saw the amazing efficiency of United Cabin Crew in reviving a passenger whose heart had stopped beating somewhere over the Afghanistan - Pakistan border, with the help of a doctor and a nurse and the cardiac defibbrilator on board, and then arranging to have the patient handed over to the medics at Delhi without delaying the other passengers. I was very impressed.


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## saxman (Mar 11, 2013)

So sounds like it was the Expressjet crew that ultimately held the aircraft. People really try and do what they can to accomodate passengers with their connections, but it's a complicated process. For the airline to keep track of delays, a delay "code" is assigned to each delay, such as maintance, late boarding, late bags, late crew, etc. Gate agents, especially, get a lot of flack for having a late flight on their hands. So they are gung ho about getting the flight out, and I've seen them leave passengers behind. But waiting too long, can affect operations down line too. But usually the last flight of the night it's nice to help everyone get on board. Leaving 5 minutes behind schedule is not going to affect the arrival time by anything, and probably won't affect the next flight because the aircraft will overnight at an outstation anyway.

Either way, kudos to the United crew, the ExpressJet, and the other agents involved, and I can tell you that this sort of thing happens more than you think.


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## chakk (Mar 11, 2013)

Yes, airlines can do many nice things for passengers and rarely do they get reported in the media. Many years ago I was traveling from California to Europe with a scheduled change of plane in Seattle. The first flight was delayed quite a bit leaving California, but the airline arrange for a shuttle van to meet the arriving California flight, and hustle me and two other passengers connecting to this flight into the van, drive around the airport to another terminal, and have us board up the outside staircase adjacent to the plane door (used by the pilots to return to the cockpit after they do their "walkaround"). The plane was pushing back from the gate before we even got settled into our seats.

Security? We didn't need no stinkin' security. (However, this was pre-9/11; maybe it wouldn't happen that way today.)


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## trainman74 (Mar 12, 2013)

chakk said:


> Security? We didn't need no stinkin' security. (However, this was pre-9/11; maybe it wouldn't happen that way today.)


Nah, there's no real security issues there, since you were under the "control" of airline/airport employees the whole time. There are a number of airports that have regular terminal-to-terminal service involving shuttle buses that drive across the tarmac and/or through other "secure" areas (both Newark and San Francisco come to mind) -- what you got was basically just the "door-to-door" version of that.


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## SarahZ (Mar 12, 2013)

I'm glad this gentleman was able to see his mother. I love reading stories like this. Too often, all we hear are complaints because that's the most vocal group. People don't tend to "speak up" unless something goes wrong. It's nice to read about good experiences with flights, trains, and hotels balanced with the usual criticisms.


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## railiner (Mar 13, 2013)

trainman74 said:


> chakk said:
> 
> 
> > Security? We didn't need no stinkin' security. (However, this was pre-9/11; maybe it wouldn't happen that way today.)
> ...


Before AA built its new terminal at JFK, American Eagle used shuttle buses to board passengers on regional aircraft parked on "the outer ramp". These same buses were also utilized for bringing AE/BA codeshare passengers going from the Concorde to and from DCA, directly from the Concorde to the AE ATR aircraft.. When AA bought TWA, they also set up an airside transfer from Terminal 9 over to Terminal 5, which prior to the Airtrain, was a real timesaver--not just for not having to go thru security again, but because the landside inter-terminal shuttle buses took 'forever' to circumnavigate the terminals.

These shuttle buses were also used when their was a chance of misconnects between various AE and AA flights from different concourses at Terminal's 8 and 9. The passenger's would be taken directly from gate to gate, or in some cases directly up the jetbridge stairs as mentioned above....


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