Pilot buys pizzas for passengers grounded by storm

Pilot buys pizzas for passengers grounded by storm


2 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Faced with potentially hungry — and grumpy — passengers, a Frontier Airlines pilot treated them to pizza when storms diverted a Denver-bound flight to Cheyenne, where the plane was stuck for a couple of hours.

Cheyenne Domino's Pizza manager Andrew Ritchie told The Associated Press that he got a call about 10 p.m. Monday just as he was about to send employees home. Ritchie said pilot Gerhard Bradner told him he needed to feed 160 people — fast.

"I put my hand over the phone and I said: 'Guys, you're coming back,'" Ritchie said, recalling what he told his employees.

In all, Ritchie said his crew made about 35 pizzas and delivered them to the airport, where the driver handed the food off to flight attendants. One of the passengers sent KUSA-TV a picture of flight attendants handing out pizza boxes.

That number of pizzas is usually what his store handles in an entire hour, Ritchie said. This time, they needed to make them and deliver them in about 30 minutes, he said.

But that didn't deter his co-workers, Ritchie said.

"Actually, they were super excited. They had a blast. It was a challenge," he said. "It was definitely one of those 'challenge accepted' moments in time."

Tyri Squyres, Frontier's vice president of marketing, said the airline's pilots have bought pizza or drinks for passengers before and have celebrated a child's first flight with a tour.

KUSA-TV reported that the flight to Denver International Airport, which originated in Washington, D.C., left Cheyenne about 10:30 p.m., shortly after the pizzas arrived.

The flight was one of dozens that were delayed Monday evening because of heavy rain across Colorado.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos

Most recent Features stories

The Associated Press

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast