We Have to Choose to be Kind

On Thursday morning this week, we left on the 6am Alaska Airlines Flight 62 from Fairbanks to Juneau, and we stopped in Anchorage. Normally, the same plane continues on to Juneau, but this time we needed to get on another plane with the same crew. We disembarked and then boarded the second plane and I reached into my backpack to discover that I had left my Bose earphones on the first plane in the seat pocket. Those earphones keep the noise of the engines at bay and I never travel without them. I panicked. They're expensive, but more than that, they make my frequent air travel more comfortable. 


People were still walking down the aisle, finding their seats and getting settled. I managed to work my way down the crowded aisle to a flight attendant and told her my story. She immediately started problem solving and said she would do what she could to get them for me. She called the attendant at the door of the plane to let her know about my problem. I sat in my seat, doing the "it could be worse" routine in my head. Five minutes later, she walked toward me, holding the earphones. She said the captain had run from our plane to the first plane, found my earphones and sprinted back in time to leave on schedule. 

Captain Marty didn't have to retrieve my earphones. I figure he had enough on his hands flying our jet. It wasn't his problem. If he had done nothing, I wouldn't have blamed him. He made a choice to be kind. So did both flight attendants.

And that is the crux of kindness, I think. We have to make a choice: to allow someone into our lane while driving, to say "thank you" with genuine feeling, to give up our seat on a crowded bus, to talk to a shy person at a party, to actually go out of our way, get out of our heads and away from the self-interest that can often drive our behavior. 

Thank you, Captain Marty! And I am saying that with genuine feeling.

It Wouldn't Have Happened on Alaska Airlines

It didn't really surprise me that the JetBlue flight attendant finally cracked after an altercation with a female passenger who cursed him, leading to his deplaning by the emergency exit slide. I think flight attendants are the canaries in the coal mine of air travel. Standing alone at the front of the airplane, they are perfect targets for the anger and fear of their passengers and have to bear the brunt of it since no one can get at the pilot and copilot who are locked in the cockpit. Since 9-11, so many things have made travel uncomfortable and, in some cases, so unpleasant that it is a wonder that no one has cracked before now. Add to that the general decline in civility and respect for other people and you have a pretty nasty brew of fear, anger, and incivility in an enclosed space with draconian rules on movement in the cabin. (I remember when it was not mandatory to wear seat belts on air planes.)

In Alaska, people can be rude, but I suspect there is far more respect for air travel professionals since so much of our travel is by air. We depend on jet pilots and bush pilots and flight attendants and baggage crews and mechanics to get us to where we want to go because we can't get to most places in Alaska by ourselves, i.e. by car. All of us have endured terrifying flights that have ended on the runway with the passengers wildly applauding. Most of us also know people who have perished in air planes and we realize that those who keep us flying are doing so at some risk to themselves. Sacrifice engenders respect. If the Jet Blue flight attendant had been treated respectfully, none of this would have happened.