SanDiego1K

I like your story, injera. And perhaps now the Scottish couple is writing on a board somewhere about this exceptional act of kindness they experienced in NYC.

Scrudgy

Quite a long time ago I had a business trip to Tripoli. I traveled alone and was met at the airport by a driver and taken to my office.

The local manager wanted my passport so they could register me with the police (standard procedure). I said I better keep it for my hotel check in, and he assurred me I wouldn't need it. It was long after 5 PM so he arranged for the driver to take me to my hotel (small traditional hotel in downtown Tripoli).

I get to the hotel and the driver zooms off (well it was ramadan and it wouldn't be long before the sun would go down, he was wanting home for some long awaited food).

I get to the front desk and tried to check in. The young man was so apologetic, but he could not check me in without a passport (so much for the local manager )

I said no problem, and got on the phone to the local manager and requested my passport back. He said he would get the driver to come straight away. Well by now the sun had set and the mosques were blaring out the call to prayers, and the chances of me seeing my passport anytime soon were remote.

A while later the young man (I would guess age 20-24) from the hotel asked me to follow him, and took me to a back room. He said "please, share my meal with me", and gestured to a plate of chicken and fish.

I was gobsmacked, not only had he fasted all day long, he was now sharing his meal with a total stranger. I was indeed hungry, but had at least eaten some of KLM's finest on the way down, so was careful to leave him the lions share.

Now that is hospitality for you. Such a nice guy who took pity on me. In fact, everyone I met in Libya were very very nice, such a shame they have had so much turmoil in recent years.

ysolde

Scrudgy

It's nice to know that the rule of hospitality is still alive and well. Sometimes, the simplest acts of kindness are the ones that touch us most deeply.

langham123

Travelling in Greece some years ago in a rental car (white Vauxhall) we had a slow puncture in the middle of no-where and couldn't find a garage. We parked in a village outside a school and 3 men who couldn't locate the car jack lifted up the front of the car and changed the tyre! We later called in at an Amerian base and they tightened the wheel nuts!

While in NY I was leaving the hotel to catch a plane and was approached by a woman who handed me my wallet which had fallen out of my pocket. It had $100 cash in it and my ticket! I was unbelievably grateful.

Some things you don't forget and thanks just never seems enough.

edvasquez

Just returned from Egypt. As Americans, we were perhaps one of 500 in the country at this time. Sitting in a Mosque this young couple with a one year old baby comes up to us. Woman wants to take a picture with my wife and her baby. She then motions for my wife to hold her child for more pics. They knew not one word of English. We knew not one word of Arabic. We sat there for ten minutes trying to communicate. They shared their food with us and we drank out of their soda bottle. For an American family of three that stood out as Westerners the experience was very touching.

wintersummer

Woman came running to front of plane. She left her laptop at McDonalds and asked to deplane. FA told her she wouldn't be able to reboard. Pilot volunteered to get laptop. He left plane and retrieved laptop.

Doc Savage

When I was driving 1200 miles cross country on my way to start grad school, a radiator hose blew on my car. A lady with her two kids in the car stopped and drove me 10 miles into town to get a new hose and fluid, drove me back to my car, and waited while I fixed it. I was a poor student back then, so really appreciated it; saved me the cost of a tow and maybe the repair.

NYTA

Traveling from TLV-SFO via AMS with a 7 year old and 5 year old. Got stuck overnight in AMS due to a snowstorm. Following day in the chaos, couldn't get a flight AMS-SFO, only AMS-ORD, then ORD-SFO on United with a 6 hour layover in ORD where we'd land late at night in SFO and still have a 2.5 hour drive to our final destination. Landed at ORD and hung around outside the gate of an earlier ORD-SFO flight and not only did a passenger volunteer her seat to get us all on the earlier flight but the GA agreed to move us on!

MAZ199

^^

undergrace

And he didn't have to run through the terminal like a maniac because he knew the plane wouldn't leave without him

ramondelapaz

perhaps ft can also feature random acts of airborne kindness?

or does that not happen often enough to provide juicy content?

just on my ICN CEB trip last oct i sat next to this kind older lady who happened to be a kababayan (fellow countryman) who after noticing my fondness of cognac volunteered to order more for me.

i thanked her but said no need, the fa would keep pouring as long as we asked.


sure we were merely single serving friends for that flight ala fight club but still it made the experience more pleasant.

in turn i helped her figure out her IFE and how to stow it (yank and return)

we also learned we shared political parties and supported similar causes.

to top it off we were on an exit row but had an empty seat in between us which made the flight that much more pleasant.

muji

I like your focus on the positive.

StartinSanDiego

I love the idea of Random Acts of Airport/Airplane kindness. So this story is a mix of bad behavior and good...but it's one of my more memorable tales.

I once helped a little kid at an airport whose mom sprinted ahead of her, presumably because they were about to miss their flight and mom wanted to get to the check-in counter before the doors were locked. The little girl, about 6 or 7, was shrieking at the top of her voice "MOM, WAIT! DON'T LEAVE ME!" The poor little thing was hauling her pink wheelie as fast as she could. You could hear her screams throughout the airport. She was terrified, and it could be heard in her voice. When she caught up with where I was sitting, I got up and walked along side of her, saying that I would walk with her up to where her mom was. She calmed down and we walked along. Eventually, maybe 5 or 6 gates later, she saw her mom. I never identified which lady was her mother.

When I boarded my flight, the stewardess mentioned that she saw me helping, and thank you.

Jane42

My sister-in-law and I were talking on our flight about how anxious we were about making our connection at an unfamiliar airport.

As we were half running through the airport, we started to turn right and a gentleman that had been walking near us said to turn left, and then he walked us right to the gate. We would never had made it without his help!

He quickly walked away before we were able to thank him for his help. We realized he had been sitting next to my sister-in-law on the flight and had heard how worried we were.

What a wonderful and thoughtful thing to do. This was years ago and I will never forget his kindness.

PS...love this thread.

JY1024

Ditto! Certainly, travel plans can often go pear-shaped and be rife with negative experiences with travel-industry employees, fellow travelers, etc. But let's not forget that nice things to happen as well - especially from random strangers.


I've taken the liberty of updating the thread title to reflect how this thread has taken shape. /Moderator