Stranger gives up first-class airline seat to make woman's 'dream' come true

It's not the typical airline story.

December 18, 2019, 4:39 PM

It's the kind of heart-warming story we don't usually associate with air travel.

An 88-year-old woman traveling in the back of a Virgin Atlantic flight was given a seat up front in the airline's upper class -- the equivalent of first class -- by a stranger.

According to a Dec. 10 Facebook post by flight attendant Leah Amy, a man named Jack had purchased seats for himself and his family on a flight that was headed to London from New York. The New Zealand Herald reported that Jack met 88-year-old Violet at the airport and decided to switch seats with her.

"When he got on board, Jack went and found Violet in economy and swapped seats with her," Amy said in her Facebook post. "He then sat on the row of seats directly next to the economy toilets and never made a peep or asked for anything the rest of the flight. No fuss, no attention, literally did it out of the kindness of his own heart, no one asked him to."

Virgin Atlantic told "Good Morning America" it could not give more details because of customer privacy, but confirmed the details of the Facebook post.

Violet's "dream has always been to sit at the front, and Jack made that come true," Amy said. "You should have seen her face when I tucked her in her bed after supper. She said her daughter won’t believe her, and wanted a ‘selfie’ to prove it, but didn’t have a phone or an email address. These photos are getting sent in the post tomorrow, can you even cope?"

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