Good really does lead the way, as one United Airlines flight attendant showed in a small but truly meaningful interaction with an upset passenger who had just discovered she was going to miss her international connection during a flight from Chicago O’Hare to San Francisco on Saturday morning.
Working his way through the cabin serving drinks and snacks on the four hour flight, the flight attendant’s reaction to the upset woman was caught on camera by Gee Scott Sr., the Seattle Seahawks Game Day Host, who was traveling to California for the Super Bowl.
The passenger next to me was crying cause she might miss her connecting flight to China. A flight attendant was passing out snacks. He could’ve kept moving, but instead he stopped, bent down, talked to her, and gave her hope. They hugged, and let me tell you, THAT HUG WAS… pic.twitter.com/YbMsQ6Xv0M
— Gee Scott Sr. 🎙️ (@GeeScottSr) February 8, 2026
“The passenger next to me was crying cause she might miss her connecting flight to China,” Scott wrote in a post on X that is now going viral and has already amassed more than 4.5 million views.
“A flight attendant was passing out snacks. He could’ve kept moving, but instead he stopped, bent down, talked to her, and gave her hope,” Scott continued. “They hugged, and let me tell you, THAT HUG WAS EVERYTHING! After she was smiling from ear to ear. My brotha, may you and your family be blessed.”
“Thank you for choosing kindness and reminding us how much one moment can matter,” Scott added.
The video of the interaction, which occurred on United Airlines flight UA-1807 on February 8, quickly gained attention and people were quick to applaud the flight attendant’s reaction.
X user Nyx wrote on Scott’s post: “Small acts, huge impact. That’s how trust in humanity gets rebuilt.” While NTS added: “I’ve been there and was grateful that the flight attendant sympathized with me and tried to calm me down.”
And Zain Nasra summed up the interaction by saying: “A flight attendant’s primary role is safety, but also passenger comfort and care. That brief moment didn’t compromise safety at all, on the contrary, it brought calm, reassurance, and humanity. Sometimes, one small act of kindness makes all the difference.”
United launched its ‘Good leads the way‘ motto in 2022 with chief executive Scott Kirby saying that the campaign was meant as a “commitment to how United Airlines intends to show up in the future.”
Coming out of the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirby said United had “emerged as a force for good and an industry leader,” with a range of iniatives to help customers.
And one of those iniatives could have helped the woman in the short video clip make her connecting flight. Luanched in 2019, ‘Connection Saver’ is a United solution to a common problem: passengers missing connecting flights by just a few minutes due to an unexpected delay.
Connection Saver utilizes AI to work out whether holding a flight will realistically give customers with a tight connection time to make their flight, while also working out how long the flight can be held without delaying the arrival of the plane at its destination.
The tech has proven to be a huge hit and has helped save 3.3 million customer connections in the last six years.
The airline also has a personalized connections assistant within its mobile app helpful information like real-time flight updates, a countdown timer, and turn-by-turn directions to the next gate, all in one easy-to-read page.
While the connection assistant is relatively new, during a test phase last Spring, 350,000 passengers used the technology and 98% made their connecting flight.
United spent millions of dollars on commericials during this years Super Bowl, in which it spotlighted in achievements installing free, super fast Starlink Wi-Fi across its entire regional fleet of more than 300 aircraft.
By the end of this year, United also plans to have installed Starlink on half of its mainline fleet, which is roughly 500 more aircraft than now.
