Well here’s something you don’t often see, which deserves calling out…
In this post:
A United captain’s compassionate LinkedIn post
United Airlines Boeing 787 captain Luis Perez took to LinkedIn, to write about the passengers he had to leave behind on a recent flight from Newark (EWR) to Lisbon (LIS). Let me just share the post in its entirety, because it’s short and sweet:
I want to say I am sorry to the passengers we left behind last night (October 12th) on United Flight 64 from Newark to Lisbon.
Our team had delayed the departure by six minutes to wait for late connecting passengers. Once everyone had boarded, the gate agent closed the flight, pulled the jetway, and we completed our final checklists in preparation for pushback.
Just as we were ready to go, the tug driver asked if we could take two additional bags that had just arrived from the late connection. We agreed, and the ramp crew quickly loaded them into the aft cargo compartment.
While that was happening, we noticed three people waving from the windows in the boarding area. At first, we thought they were pointing at the jetway — but we soon realized they were trying to get our attention, hoping to still make the flight.
It broke my heart to see them there, pleading to come aboard. Unfortunately, at that point, the flight was officially closed. The jetway had been disconnected, the gate agent had left, and the weight and balance had already been completed.
Reconnecting everything would have required reversing multiple safety and operational steps, causing a long delay for other passengers making onward connections.
Still, the sight of those passengers stayed with me.
It was a powerful reminder that behind every procedure and checklist, there are real people — with hopes, plans, and stories.
To those travelers: if you ever read this, please know that we saw you, we felt for you, and we truly wished we could have brought you with us.
We need more of this in the airline industry
The airline industry is an incredibly complex business, and there are so many operational complications that can impact the perception that people have of an experience.
All too often, the one thing missing for passengers is empathy. People just want to feel understood and heard, and like someone cares. So it’s lovely to see a pilot who can put themselves in someone else’s shoes, and show this level of caring.
Pilots aren’t just “heavy machine operators,” but they’re transporting a countless number of people through their best and worst times.
Obviously the captain made the right choice. If they had reopened the door for three passengers, there could’ve then been dozens of passengers who ended up misconnecting on the other end, and had their plans ruined. United does a great job with its ConnectionSaver technology, which determines the optimal amount of time to wait for passengers.
Of course pilots also aren’t really “frontline” employees, so they don’t deal with a majority of the direct frustration of passengers. So I get how so many gate agents are sort of desensitized to passengers who may be having a really hard time. But a little bit of kindness and compassion also goes a long way.
Bottom line
A United Airlines captain posted on LinkedIn about his sadness with having to leave three travelers behind on a recent transatlantic flight. While he said there’s nothing he could’ve done differently without then inconveniencing other passengers with connections, it’s so nice to see a pilot showing such care for others. Kudos to captain Perez!
Anyone else love this message from a pilot as much as I do?
Gee, if there was only another Star Alliance flight after that, like the one TAP flies.
Thanks for highlighting, so much goodness in the world that isn’t highlighted.
Yes, apologies are a good start; but, also, let's do EU 261-style air passenger rights legislation in the USA. K, thanx, byeee.
Couldn’t agree more!
Empathy is great but he threw a whole lot of people under the bus including UA's operations and passenger coordination team that unfortunately has to make the decision to leave some people behind - and that is true at any large airline.
An airline with a vaunted connection saver and such industry leading automation knows who they were leaving and why; the captain knows none of that. It is likely that the passengers were banging...
Empathy is great but he threw a whole lot of people under the bus including UA's operations and passenger coordination team that unfortunately has to make the decision to leave some people behind - and that is true at any large airline.
An airline with a vaunted connection saver and such industry leading automation knows who they were leaving and why; the captain knows none of that. It is likely that the passengers were banging on the jetway door with the gate agent at the jetway controls waiting for the plane to push.
If the pilot really wanted to show empathy, he could have radioed the operations control center (or whatever UA calls it at EWR) and said he isn't leaving until the passengers get on. He clearly didn't because he knows that is not his call.
and the real question is why the people weren't on the plane during regular boarding time. If it was a late connection, it simply highlights that EWR is not operating at US national levels of on-time and EWR is a high risk place to connect. If they were local, perhaps it was a late check in or TSA delay.
We don't know and neither did the captain. There are people at United who made the decision to go without those people and that is the plan that everyone at United should get behind.
and, again, the same principle applies at any large airline.
Not that you’d recognize empathy.
Hey, Jack, are you the same 'Jack' over at DoC that keeps getting replied my someone with the alias 'MeOff'? Just checking. We need a few more laughs, these days.
Nor misconnecting is exclusive to EWR.
Delta keeps ticketing me 30 min in MSP DTW or 35 min in ATL.
I missed a lot of them unless the gates are right next to another.
Never sent me a Porsche either.
Delta is a high risk airline according to your benchmarks Tim.
I worked for a small budget airline and the lack of empathy was horrendous on so many levels. My coworkers called passengers dumb and always gaslit them for difficult conversations. I'm sick of this industry and the lack of accountability for trash customer service. Though I miss working for the airline industry when I got to meet people from all corners of the world, but I hated how little I could help them and how...
I worked for a small budget airline and the lack of empathy was horrendous on so many levels. My coworkers called passengers dumb and always gaslit them for difficult conversations. I'm sick of this industry and the lack of accountability for trash customer service. Though I miss working for the airline industry when I got to meet people from all corners of the world, but I hated how little I could help them and how my company wanted me to rip them off as much as they legally can get away with. No refunds for delays, lying about bags, changing schedules all the time then blame the passengers when they didn't get the email notifications, charging people for personal items because it LOOKS too big then won't let me refund the passenger when they call in. This industry is not what it used to be. It's just a downward spiral.
It’s very easy to say that gate agents lack empathy but the same way passengers expect the airline employees to be empathetic to their situation people must understand the pressures of being a gate agent when you have very little power and have to do what you’re being told or risk being reprimanded for it. Furthermore, we take a lot of abuse from people that isn’t justified and we’re expected to just take it. There’s...
It’s very easy to say that gate agents lack empathy but the same way passengers expect the airline employees to be empathetic to their situation people must understand the pressures of being a gate agent when you have very little power and have to do what you’re being told or risk being reprimanded for it. Furthermore, we take a lot of abuse from people that isn’t justified and we’re expected to just take it. There’s two sides to a coin and passengers often only see their side of it.
No, david, this is exactly why Asian hospitality is so much better than in the west, on average. Reciprocity in empathy does not apply when the one party (customer, client) is PAYING for the service - the customer does not bear the burden of being empathetic. Asian cultures understand this much better than western cultures. The service provider is being paid to have...
No, david, this is exactly why Asian hospitality is so much better than in the west, on average. Reciprocity in empathy does not apply when the one party (customer, client) is PAYING for the service - the customer does not bear the burden of being empathetic. Asian cultures understand this much better than western cultures. The service provider is being paid to have the patience and "tak[ing] a lot of abuse" (obviously actual abuse would need referral to law enforcement handling, but you seem to be talking about run-of-the-mill job stress. that's what a paid employee is paid to handle.)
@Travelwithdavid
Stop gaslighting us.
Gate agents have a lot of power.
As matter of fact, among customer facing roles in every industry, gate agents probably among the group with most power to make things right. But you act like you're an offshore outsource chat agent who can't fix anything.
Get to the airport on time and you won’t have this problem, just sayin.
@Layne. Funny is was just teaching my 8 year old about context and explaining how things are taken out of context.
How do you know those folks were stuck on a connecting plane, maybe they left home early like they always do, but this time there was a major traffic jam etc
Have to know the story before conclusions.
Meanwhile AA gate agents pretends to not see anyone even if they're already in line.
class? more like no class.
this is self-serving virtue signaling laundering guilt through a linked in post.
if you want to be nice as a pilot you make every effort to go back to the gate and pick up those passengers. f*** connections in LIS. 99% of the plane is going there for leisure IG and TikTok selfies. it's not as though misconnecting in LIS will delay a Wachtell deal team leading to the failure to close a trillion dollar M&A deal on time.
oh my god you are ~ * e x h a u s t i n g * ~
cut the shit PENILE, aren't we the same damn person?!
somebody needs to re-up their psychiatric meds asap
not me. I am a stable genius, and hella rich
No kings.
No Kings
That was yesterday dipshit
Ugh... The trolling is real.
You DO know that plane is turning in LIS to go right back to EWR woth a plane full of connections, right? So, the ground staff is waiting oj arrival.to clean the plane, cater it and re-board for the flight back. But that wouldn't support your narrow-minded perspective, would it?
It should be uber-tiring to argue against yourself.
Agreed, this kind of empathetic message, if presented in a relevant forum (seriously? LinkedIn?) could be wise comms for a big corporation. So I agree it's part of the solution. But the context is still real: the amount of lying by airline employees directly to passengers' faces kinda negates this one positive message. "The overheads are full, you have to check your rollaboard". "We're experiencing an oversell". "Cellphones interfere with navigational equipment". "Sorry, we ran...
Agreed, this kind of empathetic message, if presented in a relevant forum (seriously? LinkedIn?) could be wise comms for a big corporation. So I agree it's part of the solution. But the context is still real: the amount of lying by airline employees directly to passengers' faces kinda negates this one positive message. "The overheads are full, you have to check your rollaboard". "We're experiencing an oversell". "Cellphones interfere with navigational equipment". "Sorry, we ran out". "Delayed due to weather". "Close your blind".
Yes, honesty is welcome. Kudos to this one pilot, this one time. But enough with the lies.
"Close your blind".
Lol
every reasonable person understands that realtime vision into overheads isn't possible and an obviously conservative estimate must be made in order to prevent backups of the single aisle boarding process and get the flight closed out on time.
great! free money for volunteers or even more money for the IDB'd. up to $10k or is it $15k now? thank you Dr....
every reasonable person understands that realtime vision into overheads isn't possible and an obviously conservative estimate must be made in order to prevent backups of the single aisle boarding process and get the flight closed out on time.
great! free money for volunteers or even more money for the IDB'd. up to $10k or is it $15k now? thank you Dr. Dao.
they very well can, have you taken electrical engineering 101? empirically the risk is low but why take it. pilots manage the risk very well - when it's high they ask you to turn all cell phones fully off (not even on in airplane mode).
that means either literally out or it's too inconvenient to get it for you. why would you want service from someone who does not want to serve you?
weather doesn't have to be literally overhead, it could be anywhere in the area or along the routes that would impact your flight plan
glare from the sunlight might be hitting another passenger at just the right angle. if you don't accommodate a reasonable request you are a d**k and if you don't accommodate an instruction from a crewmember which you are legally obligated to do then you can find yourself meeting LEO when you deplane. I'm not talking about DiCaprio, but guys with guns.
Damn Penile, go outside and talk to a women.
My wife would not appreciate that.
Inflatable doll doesn't count as wife.
It would be good for people to know that when a flight is closed (the 15 min window they say you must be on board before the departure time), it sets in to motion a chain of events taking ~15 minutes, involving finalizing all paperwork, calculations, getting clearances and coordination from dispatch/ATC etc, to get the flight on its way. For someone to be let on, it would mean going through the steps to get...
It would be good for people to know that when a flight is closed (the 15 min window they say you must be on board before the departure time), it sets in to motion a chain of events taking ~15 minutes, involving finalizing all paperwork, calculations, getting clearances and coordination from dispatch/ATC etc, to get the flight on its way. For someone to be let on, it would mean going through the steps to get the jet bridge attached, and *then* resetting that 15 min clock to do all the steps again. It's not like because someone thinks the distance to the plane is just a few feet, it's that simple. Now, it's a whole different issue when the airline pads the schedule, or they close the gate only to sit there because there's a curfew on the other end.
....agree and not to mention all of the passengers who have also paid for a flight to leave (and hopefully) arrive on time - some of whom also have connections and deadlines to make
and yes, I have missed flights due to all sorts of reasons, including doors shut in my face by GA, but rules exist for a reason. Some people may not like those reasons, especially when they want them bent