Outrageous Hospitality: Love on a Plane

It began as a normal plane ride. We’d been airborne twenty minutes, and my thoughts were already shifting to domestic tasks, things happily forgotten for three days during a busy academic conference: an electrical problem with an upstairs hall light, a daughter’s dental appointment.

Our flight departed Boston at day’s end, so the cabin grew dark early in the trip. At some point, I noticed that the space had become brighter. I soon realized that a flight attendant was systematically turning on every reading light, or asking window-seat passengers to activate ones he could not reach.

Not only was this unusual, but his demeanor seemed odd. Earlier he had recited the pre-flight announcements as we taxied to the runway, and he took every occasion to make little jokes, and was generally upbeat. That can be annoying, of course, but he struck the right note. I liked how he did his job, his mix of positivity and efficiency. But now he worked quietly, and with a solemnity that bordered on ceremonial.

At first, his unusual behavior made me nervous. As fliers, we count on all aspects of in-air experiences to be customary, and for all involved to act predictably. I must admit, I felt myself growing worried about this break with routine. Why was he doing this?

Then he took the microphone and said, “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I have something really important to say. Please give me your attention.” Despite sitting halfway toward the back of the plane, I could see him clearly, lit up by the rows of glowing lights.

I sat up to listen.

At that moment, a young man stood. He stepped into the aisle and invited a woman to join him. They looked like college classmates. She appeared startled, yet trusting, and then the young man turned to her and dropped to his knee. They were about six rows ahead of me. He asked if she would marry him.

With excitement, the attendant proclaimed, “She said yes, everybody!” The entire cabin erupted in applause. I clapped too, and felt strangely moved.

I later learned that attendants sometimes ask passengers to turn on lights for other festive occasions—Grandpa’s 100th birthday, let’s say—and then have everyone switch them off at once to simulate “blowing out the candles.” I’m glad that didn’t happen here, for it may have clashed with what made the moment so touching—its awkward tenderness.

I was relieved that the strange circumstances involved no danger. I also felt privileged to have witnessed the man proposing and the woman accepting; saying, "Yes, let’s journey together."

As passengers slowly turned off their overhead lights, one by one, I began to understand the flight attendant’s actions as a profound example of hospitality, occurring when I least expected it. I couldn’t know it at that moment, but he was going about his work with deep regard for another person’s circumstances. In turn, the atmosphere for the proposal had been surprisingly warm and intimate, like a backyard party with friends and laughter and tiki torches all around.

Despite the impersonality and typical unpleasantness of stressed, cramped space, the attendant had helped a nervous young man feel “at home” in the unlikeliest of places—an airplane cabin at 35,000 feet. And I was able, on a random flight from Boston, to witness a tender, good-willed action.