While few things are more frustrating than having a flight diverted or canceled due to weather, one pilot made sure his passengers weren’t left hungry at the airport during their delay.
On Thursday, an American Airlines flight scheduled to fly from Los Angeles to Dallas/Fort-Worth was diverted overnight to Wichita Falls, Texas, due to severe thunderstorms, PEOPLE confirms. According to CNN, this left 159 passengers stuck in the Wichita Falls airport, awaiting accommodations until their flight departed the following morning.
While crew members assisted in re-booking the passengers and scheduling overnight accommodations in nearby hotels, the aircraft’s captain, Jeff Raines, called Papa John’s and ordered 40 pizzas to be delivered to the airport.
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Josh Raines, an airport employee and relative of Jeff according to Facebook, filmed a video of Jeff meeting the pizza delivery car outside of the terminal and hand-delivering pizzas to the crowd of diverted passengers.
“I don’t think I’ve seen this before,” Josh tweeted.
“What a guy, what a guy,” people can be heard saying in the video.
However, despite being lauded as a hero by his hungry passengers, Jeff responded that his whole team should be take credit.
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“Thanks for the compliments however this was a ‘TEAM’ effort,” Jeff wrote on Facebook, according to multiple outlets. “My First Officer was on the telephone with crew tracking / hotel desk arranging for our release and hotels for the entire crew. The Flight Attendants manned a galley cart from the aircraft serving waters, juice, and sodas to all the passengers in the terminal. All while the Envoy SPS Personnel were arranging for a bus, re-booking flights, and answering a flurry of questions from these passengers. Thanks to everyone for your help – there is no ‘I’ in TEAM.”
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According to an American Airlines representative, it is standard procedure to provide customers with overnight accommodations when a flight is diverted or canceled and passengers have to remain overnight.
“All of us are always proud of our crew members who take great care of our customers who fly on American Airlines,” a representative for the brand tells PEOPLE. “We are fortunate that our crew members are the best in the business.”
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