Halloween in Air World

My version of Halloween was probably different than most others. I didn’t dress up special or behave differently but I did spend it in Air World. I had a day trip to Orlando thanks to JetBlue offering up their #TrickOrTweet promotion last week. And it was a great mix of fun and interesting.

Want to travel on 10/31? We’ll make your trip sweeter! Tag @JetBlue & #TrickOrTweet! While ltd supplies last. +Restr https://t.co/KV60GWTq13

— JetBlue (@JetBlue) October 23, 2014

So for $150 round-trip I had a flight booked. Not a bad deal at all. Add in another $30 for a rental car for the day (Thanks, AutoSlash) and a quick business meeting coordinated in Melbourne and my day was quite fully booked. But that wasn’t the best part. The $28 I spent at Duane Reade on the way to the airport was.

It is amazing to me the reaction you can get from airline employee simply by smiling and saying “Trick-or-Treat” while offering them up some Halloween candy. I started the day with nearly seven pounds of random “fun-size” packs and ended with about seven pieces. The rest went to gate agents, flight attendants, the folks who push the wheelchairs, the guys cleaning the rental cars and just about anyone else I ran into along the way. Only one or two called me out on the “reverse” trick-or-treat aspect of my approach. Many were too happy smiling and grabbing a snack to even care.

And here we have @WanderngAramean doing a reverse trick or treat to @jetblue employees at MCO pic.twitter.com/xdIrI3m3sI

— Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) October 31, 2014

(I actually had no idea @AIrlineFlyer was taking that photo and didn’t see it until a few hours later)

I had agents telling me that I made their day. I was thanked in Portuguese (the TAM flight out of Orlando looked a bit insane in the boarding area; I’m sure the GAs appreciated the sugar jolt), Spanish and English. I had one airport info booth rep in Orlando recognize me coming back through for our departure with a very pleased “Oh, you again” (she was working a double shift and we delivered candy to her on both our arrival and departure from MCO).

It was a very good reminder that being nice to people pays out huge dividends. And that, as jobs go, airport customer service agent is probably pretty low down on the list of those who typically are dealing with happy customers on a regular basis. That’s a shame.

Added bonus: As we cleared the cloud layer departing JFK in the morning I spotted this out my window.

Simply spectacular.

A day trip to Florida is not generally a short day. I ended up spending nearly 18 hours door-to-door and that can be exhausting, but it was completely worth it.