Passenger Peggy Uhle will be forever grateful to Southwest Airlines after they helped her through a real family trauma. When Peggy boarded her flight from Chicago to Columbus, Ohio, she turned off her cell phone as the plane rolled away from the gate. But she and her fellow passengers didn’t get very far, because the plane suddenly turned around on the tarmac at Midway Airport and taxied back toward the gate. Peggy and the rest of the passengers had no idea what was happening. Once the plane was anchored at the gate, a flight attendant approached Peggy and asked her to get off. Peggy thought she had boarded the wrong plane, but when she got back inside the terminal, a gate agent told her to call her husband. He had been forced to contact Southwest Airlines because Peggy’s phone was turned off. But luckily, the airline managed to get the two spouses in contact with each other at the last moment. It turned out that Peggy’s 24-year-old son had suffered a serious head injury and was in a coma in Denver. Peggy had barely taken in the shocking news before a staffer explained that the airline had reticketed her on the next direct flight to Denver and arranged all of the other practical details. They offered a private waiting area, rerouted her luggage, allowed her to board first, and packed a lunch for when she got off the plane in Denver. Her luggage was delivered to where she was staying, and she even received a call from Southwest asking how her son was doing. Today, her son has fully recovered from his serious head injury.
Thank you, Southwest, for showing so much heart.