Humans Made The Difference. This Week’s Story Finder Heroes + Three Reasons Why They Matter.

When I finally got to my hotel room, 15 hours had passed since I started the day at Nashville International Airport. I wasn’t flying overseas. I was simply going to the next time zone. Flight delays, cancellations, more delays, and a cancelled itinerary added to “one of those” travel days last week. You’ve been there. However, it was the humans who made the difference this time. 

It was a simple flight with a connector. The weather delayed everything in and out of Dallas/Fort Worth and its web of aeronautical influence. No biggie. I had plenty of connection time at DFW. Delays mean more steps for those of us who obsess about our fitness apps.

The delays continued as I covered every concourse, including the expansion of Concourse D with additional gates for Southwest Airlines. Plus, I was unaware the concourse would extend and include the record node design in the picture below. The record node, set to open this summer, is very Music City.

When you walk away from your gate during a delay, you spend more time looking at the airline app for updates. Another 45 minutes passed without changes, and I thought I should make my way back toward the gate. We were loading, and I would arrive at DFW with plenty of time to make my connection flight.

Yeah, just loading, not moving. After an hour, we were told of more delays in the system. The doors would be opened for anyone who wanted to deplane, but it meant you couldn’t get back on that flight. Hmm. Decisions. At this point, I’m okay with the risk until the next chapter of the story. I got a notice that my connection flight had been cancelled.

Looking at flight options on the app was my first instinct, but the app could only do so much. It was time to make a phone call and wait on hold for a long time because I wasn’t the only person delayed. Surprisingly, the phone prompts didn’t ask me to wait in line for a call back. After 30 seconds of that groovy on-hold music, I got human interaction!

He sounded like a Smooth Jazz DJ. I was expecting him to complete my disappointing travel options, but in a way that made me feel good. It didn’t take long for the service agent to correct my expectations and give me an option for my cancelled connector flight. However, it meant flying to another nearby market. Success. I would arrive late, but I would arrive. We’ll call this Change One for the sake of the story.

If I’m numbering the changes, then you know there’s more coming. It happened after we sat on the tarmac for another hour. After another announcement from the cockpit, I read between the lines and assumed we would be cancelled and return to the gate. It was time to call American Airlines again. Similar to the first call, I was quickly connected with another human, and after 14 minutes, she had the Change Two option.

This change involved me deplaning and waiting two hours for a flight that took me backwards to another time zone, then arriving late at the nearby market mentioned in the Change One option. “Let’s do it,” was my response when the captain came on the intercom and said, “Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.” I shared what was happening with the service agent, and she said she would save the option for me in case we didn’t lift off from Nashville.

Terminal D at DFW is one of my favorites. Wide lanes with plenty of shopping and food options so you don’t feel like you’re walking through an airport. We were landing in Terminal C, and I could take the train and attempt to keep my balance without holding a metal bar to test my lower body strength. I failed on the third turn and reached up for the overhead balance bar. When we arrived in D, I had time to walk to my gate and plan the remainder of my walking time before the flight. The flight loading at the gate was going to Mexico, and, understandably, they didn’t have time for my question.

As I walked away from the gate where my flight would be loading in an hour, I noticed the boarding pass wasn’t on my app. Hmm. Let me call my friends at American Airlines. They’ll pick up right away. This time, the recorded message said I could stay on hold for 30 minutes or wait for a callback. I chose the callback option, and I had time to walk to the customer service gate to clear up my confusion about my missing boarding pass.

The customer service line looked like a hurricane evacuation scene. I’m not a member of the airline’s Admirals Club, but it didn’t prevent me from walking in with some confidence, looking for a quick answer. “Can you tell me if I’m booked on this flight?” They were happy to help until they realized I wasn’t a member. Fail. I walked back to the gate because the payoff would be more steps for the fitness app, right?

The phone started ringing in my earbuds. It was American Airlines, and she was eager to solve my problems. But there was one big problem. My entire itinerary had been mistakenly deleted. Not only was I not going to my destination, but I wasn’t going back home to Nashville either. Before I could comment, she quickly said, “Let’s fix that and get you back on those flights.”

Change Three was more encouraging than the previous two options because this service advisor resolved the conflict of loss. But there was another problem. The flight option from Change Two was no longer available after the accidental itinerary deletion. What now? She wanted me to give her a few minutes to correct the problem as I listened to her rhythmically dancing her fingers along the keyboard.

The human phone calls lasted 11 minutes and 14 minutes. Call number three was approaching the 12-minute mark when she said, “There’s one seat open.” It was a middle seat on the last row of a flight taking off in three hours, and it arrived at my original destination. All the delays created an opening and a solution for this traveler.

Okay, this story isn’t dramatic. I got to my hotel 15 hours after I arrived at BNA. When I do the math, there was a seven-hour extension to the original plan. There’s no empathy expected for a traveler who ended up with five packages of Biscoff cookies during the flight delays. The real story involves the real problem solvers: my three human service advisors.

In a time when our fear grows daily with the threat of jobs being replaced by bots and AI, my problems were solved by people who understood their job and wanted to fix my travel plans due to an uncontrollable inconvenience. Sounds basic, but the people who successfully perform their service jobs seem more and more noticeable every day.

The headline sounds trite, but there are three reasons why we (the humans reading this, not the AI analyzing it) are more impactful than we have been in recent eras.

• Empathy: AI gets more unique every day. The airline apps can predict and communicate delays and changes in real-time. But it can’t sense frustration, anger, relief, or joy. Why? Because it hasn’t been in those human situations like the problem-solvers I encountered. Empathy creates the bond. I asked the names of all three of my helpers. “Hey, Mike, I just want to thank you. I realize you’ll hang up and do it for someone else. But you made this person feel better for a few hours, so thank you,” is how I ended each call. You know who benefited more from that accolade? Me.

• Unscripted: AI was ready to help and solve my problem, but it could only do so much because the problem involved creating options in real time over the phone based on feedback from two humans talking. When I got to Change Three, it was a human who said, “Uh, we have a problem. Let me fix your itinerary first, then we’ll find a flight.”

• Trust: I don’t have negative critiques about American Airlines or any airline. I’ve flown Spirit twice, and it was fine. You know why? Because the plane arrived at the desired destination. That’s all I care about, and it’s why I always thank the cockpit on my way out of the plane. But this recent experience improved my trust in American Airlines. It had nothing to do with the flight. However, the people behind the scenes made a great impression on me, and subconsciously, I’ll likely look at AA options for my next flight because I have an increased level of trust with their brand.

Where can we recognize and improve our human interaction with customers and clients? We may coach our team on the importance of establishing a stronger connection with our audience and benefactors. But do we teach them the greater benefits of those connections? Emotional intelligence, pivoting in the moment, and creating a trusting result…and another, then another, then another.