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On Thanksgiving, Some Gratitude For Those Who Help Us Travel

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This Thanksgiving, our "Going Places" crew is thankful for the people who help us get from Point A to Point B.

So many people help us get where we need to go when we're traveling. Highway workers. Rest stop workers. Ticket agents. Flight attendants. Bus drivers. Pilots. Ramp workers. Baggage handlers. The list goes on and on.

This Thanksgiving week, we're listening back to a 2014 conversation about gratitude, between knkx travel expert Matthew Brumley and 88.5's Ed Ronco.

Getting Home

A trip to Munich for Brumley ended with a last-minute itinerary change. Instead of flying from Munich to Amsterdam, and then on to Chicago, he needed to get to Seattle as his final destination.

“The first lady I spoke to couldn’t help me, so I went to another counter,” he said. “I told the woman [there] the same story, and for no good reason she started working on my behalf.”

She changed the ticket. She waived the hundreds of dollars in change fees. And she bumped Brumley up to Economy Plus class.

“I would just like to thank Olga for making my life a lot easier in Munich,” he said. “And that’s another tip for you: Don’t always take ‘no’ for an answer. Just stay polite, stay calm.”

Andrea With The Earplugs

Ed's story comes from the cabin of a Boeing 737 bound for Anchorage.

In the back row, an infant started screaming – a piercing, break-the-windows kind of scream. There’s only so much parents can do to calm upset children, so patience and sympathy are probably the best reactions to that situation. But people shifted uncomfortably in their seats as the screaming continued and grew in volume.

That’s when Andrea made her way up the aisle, quietly handing earplugs to passengers. She went further, circling back to offer the mother extra comforts, and making her feel more at ease, too.

Who Helped You?

So, who has gone above and beyond for you while you’ve been traveling? Maybe it was someone in an airport. Or maybe someone helped you when you had car trouble on the interstate. Tell us your story in the comments below.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Ed Ronco is a former KNKX producer and reporter and hosted All Things Considered for seven years.