After more than 10,000 flights and carrying more than 2 million passengers over a 33-year career, American Airlines pilot Captain Jeff Rowland flew his final flight on Monday and he did it with style.
With family members on board holding balloons, Captain Jeff Rowland had a goodbye letter he had written for the occasion handed out through the cabin.
“Welcome aboard my last flight as an American Airlines pilot!” the letter reads.
“I’m just as honored to be part of your lives today as on my very first flight so many years ago.”
While he’s sympathetic to the difficulties of travel, admitting that “we sometimes look at air travel today as sort of a necessary evil… to be endured” he is noticeably grateful for the opportunity.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said, adding: “AA only made one big mistake I can think of with me… they paid me, and I would have done this for nothing!”
LA Times reporter Sam Farmer was on the flight and shared the touching letter on Twitter, saying the plane was full of streamers and balloons.
That’s certainly retiring with a bang!
Flights are becoming quite the platform to stage a life-changing event, and while Jeff’s big moment was his retirement, another couple have been married on the papal plane and the ceremony was officiated by none other than the Pope himself.
Flight attendants, Paula Podest Ruiz and Carlos Ciuffardi Ellorriaga, were sitting next to the Pope on the papal plane getting ready for a group photograph.
During some light small talk, Pope Francis learnt that the couple was all set to get married in 2010 but a devastating earthquake hit their hometown in Chile, destroying the church where their ceremony was to be held.
While the couple already had a civil ceremony they had yet to have a formal ceremony and it was reportedly Francis’ idea to marry them, to which they responded “OK!”
Be prepared, your next flight might just be quite the occassion!