Southwest Airlines is being praised for going above and beyond to surprise a Spirit Airlines Captain who was due to fly his very last flight before retirement on the same day that the ultra-low-cost carrier fell into liquidation, ensuring that this career was celebrated on what was otherwise a brutally sad day for thousands of former Spirit employees.
Captain Jon Jackson was due to operate his last flight before mandatory retirement on Saturday, but like all of Spirit’s pilots, flight attendants, and ground staff, he woke up to the news that the airline had failed in its last-ditch bid to secure a $500 million bailout from the Trump administration.
Rather than celebrating his retirement by operating his last commercial passenger flight as the Captain of a Spirit Airlines Airbus A320, Capt. Jackson found himself sitting in a regular passenger seat at the back of a Southwest Airlines plane after the Dallas-based carrier opened up seats to repatriate stranded Spirit aircrew back home.
Sitting alongside Capt. Jackson was his son, Chris, who happens to be a First Officer at Southwest Airlines. Chris quietly mentioned to the pilots of the Southwest flight to Baltimore why his dad was on board, and the pilots knew exactly what to do.
Southwest Airlines had no intention of allowing Capt. Jackson’s career to end on such a low note, so, behind the scenes, the airline started working on a plan to celebrate his retirement just like it would do for one of its own.
Unbeknownst to Capt. Jackson or his son, Southwest’s operations team had arranged for the Fire Department at Baltimore International Airport to meet the aircraft on its arrival and give the aircraft a traditional water gun salute.
The celebrations did, however, end there.
As Capt. Jackson deplaned into the terminal, he discovered that Southwest had arranged for an impromptu gate party. He was presented with a bottle of sparkling wine and a round of applause, much to his surprise.
It was, no doubt, that Capt. Jackson will cherish for a long time, although May 2 will prove to be a date filled with sadness for many other Spirit employees.
After 34 years, Spirit Airlines collapsed within the space of a few hours. News of the carrier’s impending demise first started to circulate on Friday morning as it became clear that an impasse between the airline’s creditors and the Trump administration over a potential bailout could not be broken.
Publicly, Spirit Airlines was trying to reassure passengers and staff that there was still hope and that flights were continuing to operate as normal. Behind the scenes, however, Spirit’s management team knew the game was up.
Plans were being put in place to ground the entire Spirit Airlines fleet as of 3:00 am ET on Saturday. In the end, it was Spirit flight NK-1833 from Detroit to Dallas Fort Worth that was the last ever revenue service for the airline to land just after midnight on May 2.
