United Airlines holds plane so passenger can say goodbye to his dying mother

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By Christopher Elliott

Kerry Drake’s mother was dying — and he needed to get the next United Airlines flight home.

Drake’s mother had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for decades and the drugs used to treat her condition had decimated her immune system.

One morning his brother called him to say Mom’s time had come. Drake caught the next United flight from San Francisco, where he works for the federal government, to Lubbock, Texas, via Houston.

“I knew this itinerary was a risk because the stopover in Houston was only about 40 minutes, and my connecting flight was the last flight to Lubbock that day,” he says. “But I needed to get there as soon as possible, so I took the risk.”

A delayed United Airlines flight

As it turns out, United Airlines flight 667 was delayed leaving San Francisco. Drake was visibly distraught. You can’t prepare for a moment like this but now came the very real possibility that he wouldn’t have the chance to see his mother before she passed away.

A flight attendant, Sofia Lares, tried to comfort him. “She said she would do everything she could and brought extra napkins for my tears,” Drake says.

Another flight attendant, Lan Chung, asked for Drake’s flight number and relayed it to the captain.

Flight 667 made up some time en route to Houston, but not enough. By the time Drake’s plane landed, his connecting United Airlines flight had left the gate.

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At least, that’s what he thought. (Related: Would you care to hold that plane?)

United Airlines to the rescue

“As I was running up to the gate, the gate agent saw me coming and shouted, ‘Mr. Drake? We’ve been expecting you’,” he said. “That’s when I knew they had conspired to help me. She waved me onto the plane without looking at my boarding pass.”

United Airlines had held the aircraft for him. Not only did he make it to Lubbock as scheduled, but so did his luggage.

“Had I missed my United Airlines flight to Lubbock, I would not have been able to tell my mom goodbye,” Drake said. “When she died, I realized I was wiping away my tears with the extra United Airlines napkins that Sofia had given me the day before.”

Forever grateful to United Airlines

Drake says he’s grateful to the flight crew that made his farewell possible, including the attendants on his San Francisco flight and Denver-based captain Edward Goldstein and Dirk Chilian, the flight’s first officer. He also thanks Houston customer service rep Marie Robertson and all the Houston baggage handlers who got his luggage to his final destination.

It’s been a few years since we’ve had an airline hold a flight for a passenger in need. Nice work, United.

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Christopher Elliott

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that empowers consumers to solve their problems and helps those who can't. He's the author of numerous books on consumer advocacy and writes three nationally syndicated columns. He also publishes the Elliott Report, a news site for consumers, and Elliott Confidential, a critically acclaimed newsletter about customer service. If you have a consumer problem you can't solve, contact him directly through his advocacy website. You can also follow him on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or sign up for his daily newsletter. He is based in Rio de Janeiro.

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