Southwest gate agent, ramp crew, and pilot get creative to recover passenger’s phone

A heartwarming scene emerged yesterday when a Southwest Airlines gate agent, ramp crew and pilot were forced to get creative to recover a passenger’s phone after the plane had already pulled away from the gate.

The video was tweeted by Southwest Airline’s official Twitter account with a short play-by-play of the events. Although not much more is known that was tweeted, the gist of things appears simple.

A passenger apparently left their phone somewhere in the boarding area at the Long Beach Airport (LGB). The gate agent must have located it although it appears the phone was found after the plane had pulled away from the gate.

Not to be deterred the unnamed gate agent apparently waved the plane down and worked hand in hand (pardon the pun) with the pilot and ramp crew to toss the phone up to the pilot – who successfully caught it.

Southwest Airlines is by no means a perfect airline, but they are known for being a bit quirky, often going the extra mile for customers and in general having mostly excellent customer service. So this sort of story does not surprise Southwest fans in the least.

It would have been easy for the gate agent to not even try (and no one would have begrudged her – after all the plane had departed). But, going the extra mile for their customers is something Southwest is known for and this agent wasn’t having it.

The look of excitement when the pilot catches the phone lets you know this agent know how much it mattered to the customer.

Pretty neat story and I don’t know about you, but I was holding my breath when the phone was tossed to the pilot. Pretty easy to drop that baby… Nice catch, Skipper and a great toss by the ramp crew.

Keep up the good work, Southwest.

Image: Twitter