Southwest Airlines just made a major flight delay totally bearable.
A woman from Windermere, Florida, tweeted about her flight, which was late on Thursday by almost three hours. But her irritation turned jubilant once a Southwest agent at the gate offered a fun way to pass the time: a hilarious game of “Win a prize for the worst driver’s license picture.”
Sharing a video from the gate of an agent over the loudspeaker engaging with passengers, Kristen Dundas wrote, “My flight to Washington DC has been delayed for almost 2 and a half hours and I was getting HEATED until this gate agent started playing games with everyone waiting to pass the time and now I’m like I’ll wait all damn night if you keep this up 🤣 #amazing.”
Dundas — who was on her way to Washington, D.C., from Orlando for a short weekend trip to visit friends, according to CNN — tagged the airline on Twitter. And soon, a representative responded.
“I’m glad our Agent was able to make the delay a little more bearable for y’all, Kristen! We hope to have you on your way ASAP,” Alec, the spokesperson, wrote, adding when Dundas asked the company to give the Orlando-based team “kudos,” “Send over your confirmation in a DM, and I’ll be sure they get the recognition they deserve!”
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Dundas spoke to CNN about the experience, which also saw her fellow passengers participating in a paper airplane-making contest. Both competitions, she said, earned the winners prizes like Southwest merchandise and $25 vouchers toward future flights.
“I was really irritated that the flight kept getting delayed,” Dundas told the outlet. “Once he started playing games, I was laughing and having a great time and didn’t even mind that the flight was delayed.”
This isn’t the first time Southwest agents have encouraged their customers’ creativity in the name of patience and freebies. Videos posted over the years on Twitter show other instances of similar games, like one from April 2017 where customers could win free WiFi for the best paper airplane during a delay in Dallas.
Another similar competition went down in Baltimore in 2015, with a passenger sharing a photograph of a Southwest agent surrounded by paper airplanes at the gate.
“Our pilot is delayed so #southwest sponsored a paper airplane contest.while we wait. Longest flight gets a travel voucher.:-) Mine took a short flight with a sharp right. LOL,” the passenger captioned her Instagram snapshot.
Dan Landson, a Southwest Airlines spokesperson, told CNN that Dundas’ Thursday video “is another great example of how we encourage our employees to have fun with customers.”
“Our employees are known for these types of fun activities all across our system and they’re designed to help make flying fun for everyone,” he added.
Southwest didn’t immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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