Pre-Boarding

Short Story Day 143 of 365

“Attention in the Boarding Area for Flight 2259 with direct service to Minneapolis St. Paul. We will begin pre-boarding in a few moments, but before we are able to do that, we would like to ask if there are any passengers who are able to take the next flight out, which leaves 20 minutes after our flight, please see me at the podium. We are in need of four volunteers for this flight.”

          Ten minutes passed before the next announcement.

          “Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your patience. As a reminder, we are in need of three additional volunteers who are able to take the next flight to Minneapolis St. Paul. As an incentive, we are offering $100 to be used on your next flight with us at FirstAir. Once again, we thank you for flying with us at FirstAir. The sooner we have those volunteers, the sooner we can begin pre-boarding. Thank you for your cooperation.”

          Five minute elapsed.

          “Attention, Ladies and Gentlemen. We are still in need of two volunteers to take a later flight into Minneapolis. We are offering a cash incentive of…”

          The microphone clicked off for a second.

          “… dollars and a free upgrade to Business Class on Flight 2279 to Minneapolis St. Paul approximately 20 minutes after our flight leaves.”

          In the terminal, there was a bit of murmuring about the incentive. Nobody quite heard it or saw her mouth the words because she had her head down.

          A man and his wife walked to the podium and said, “We’ll take you up on this.” He handed the tickets to the agent, who began entering their information into the system.

          New tickets printed out as did a check from FirstAir airlines.

          “Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Renfry. You’re all set. Thank you.”

          Mr. Renfry looked over his tickets and did a double take at the check. He looked back at the agent. She smiled and winked.

          Mr. Renfry walked slowly to a spot with two empty seats and casually passed the check over to his wife.

          She gasped and looked up at her husband and back at the agent who had the microphone in her hand and a smile on her face as she made the next flight announcement.

          Sitting down, Mr. Renfry said, “Interesting. Now I know why the company just filed for bankruptcy protection.”

          “Really? FirstAir?”

          “Mm hmm. Giving away $2000 like that is certainly no way to run a company…but I’m not complaining.”