How Delta helped bring a passenger to their dying loved one for a final goodbye: ‘He gave me the gift of time’

A bereaved daughter has shared a touching story of how Delta Air Lines helped her say goodbye to her dying mother.

Hannah White reported in a now-viral TikTok – which has garnered 10.3 million views and 1.9 million likes – that the operator made it possible for her to see her mother just one day before she died.

Her mother, Kathleen Nelson, was in the hospital for undiagnosed pneumonia and was “fine” after surgery, she wrote in the video.

But then she got a call from her brother informing her that her mother’s body had gone into septic shock and “the family needed to visit her immediately”.

“The doctors didn’t know what was wrong or how long she had,” White said.

She immediately booked the first flight out of Dallas the next day, which had a connection in Minneapolis, to Bismarck Municipal Airport in North Dakota.

The connecting flight time would have been fine, but the plane from Dallas had mechanical problems and they were grounded at the Dallas Fort Worth airport for more than an hour, she explained.

“I knew if I didn’t make my connecting flight, I wouldn’t see my mom until the next day, and we weren’t sure she was going to be alive,” White said.

White explained the situation to a flight attendant and asked if there was anything she could do to make sure she got on the connecting flight to see her mother.

Flight attendant Eva Ortiz, CNN reported, returned to White’s seat and told her that unfortunately, she would miss the second flight and that the airline had already booked her on a new flight for the next day.

“As she explained this, I immediately started to tear up,” White said. “She apologized and cried with me.”

“I sat up in my seat, knowing there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to see my mom for the last time.”

But Delta did not disappoint.

An hour later, Ortiz returned to White’s seat and told her that the pilot, Capt. Keith Napolitano, called the other pilot on the connecting flight and explained her story.

The other pilot agreed to hold the plane and wait for her to see her mother.

“The stars don’t always align where I have the immediate ability to affect the outcome, but this was one of those times where I felt it was possible,” Napolitano told CNN Travel.

White said they moved her to first class on the first flight so she could get off the plane faster.

“When I got to my first class seat, the pilot made an announcement to the entire plane to let me off first so I could make it to say goodbye to my mom,” she wrote.

She said that the passengers also helped her. The man sitting next to her in first class realized the pilot was talking about her, so he pulled out a map of the airport and helped her figure out where the connecting gate would be.

“He told me to run as fast as I could as soon as we landed,” she said.

She got off the plane and ran to the second flight, knowing that the plane had been waiting for her for 30 minutes.

“The whole time I was taking pictures of my mom and how she would run across the country for me too,” White said.

When she got to the flight, the entire plane was seated and waiting, and she knew she would be able to rest knowing she would see her mom that night.

“I got on my flight and all the staff happily greeted me saying, ‘We’ve been waiting for you, Hannah,'” she added.

“As I landed, all the flight attendants gave me words of encouragement and wished me luck,” White said, adding that the pilot shook her hand and said he would pray for her.

White’s mother passed away the next day and thanks to Delta she got an extra 24 hours with her.

“I was able to say ‘I love you’ one last time and give her the comfort in her last moments that she has given me all my life.”

“Thank you Delta. You gave me the gift of time. You have a lifetime customer in me,” White concluded.