delight
He paged Delta himself, and 81,000 people cheered.
The desk was empty. The intercom was not.
A traveler at Los Angeles International Airport found the Delta Air Lines desk at gate 30B empty last month, needed help with his flight, and noticed the intercom sitting right there. So he used it. "Hi Delta associates that aren't paying attention, please come to 30B," he announced. "You have a customer waiting. Thank you." When nobody arrived, he switched into a passable flight attendant cadence: "Delta, Delta, Delta. Please come to 30B." An automated baggage message cut in, and he negotiated with it. The empty desk was not random bad luck. Delta canceled more than 400 flights that weekend, citing crew restrictions, and gates across the system went unstaffed. A fellow passenger filmed the whole thing, and the internet handled the rest. "Who is he? Upgrade him," one commenter wrote. Another noticed something 81,000 people agreed with: it was the clearest that mic had ever sounded. No one got hurt. No one got arrested. A pilot eventually wandered over, spoke briefly, and walked away.