And Now, a Positive Air Travel Story!

With all the negative stories about air travel, I’m happy to report a positive one. Last week, my family flew from Philadelphia to San Francisco to spend time with old friends. While waiting to depart from Philadelphia, we took our kids to a great play area just inside the security zone. Appropriately airport-themed, the boys were running around a large model airplane when we heard a panicked voice ring out. An elderly woman was rushing towards the information booth that sat just outside the play area, shouting about a lost wallet. The 2 people inside the booth looked at each other when another airport worker from another agency, called out that he knew that yet another airport employee from yet another agency had taken the wallet to lost and found. Lost and found was just outside the security zone, so this elderly woman would have to leave the terminal, go find the lost and found, and then go back through security, and her flight was leaving in 15 minutes. Yikes.

Airports have employees from multiple agencies working within its’ walls, often independent from one another and with little coordination and cooperation. So that’s what makes what happened next such a beautiful sight. One of the information booth employees inside the secure zone radioed another information booth employee that was outside security to go to lost and found and find the wallet. That employee recovered the wallet and then handed it off to another employee from another agency who was able to go through security quickly and then hand it off to yet another information booth employee who ran down the hall to bring the wallet to the panicked elderly woman. All this took place in the span of 5 minutes. Smiles filled the terminal just as smiles filled the adjacent play area, and what beautiful sights they were. And anywhere along the way someone could have said this isn’t my job area or there’s nothing I can do, but that was not the case. And as a result not only was an elderly woman able to catch her flight with wallet in hand, but many fellow travelers enjoyed witnessing an act of kindness and cooperation inside a facility not often known for such. A little kindness and cooperation goes a long way, and in this case, it traveled a few thousand miles beyond Philadelphia.