Lynden man’s praise of Canadian flight crew becomes viral hit

In a week of bad public relations for some airline companies, a Lynden man’s Facebook post praising a Canadian carrier got noticed.

Joel VanderHoek wrote an open letter to WestJet after he witnessed a flight crew and some passengers come to the aid of a man who lost consciousness aboard a flight Saturday from Calgary to Abbotsford, B.C.

“There was a medical incident, and the way it was handled deserves commendation,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “They were so organized, caring, respectful and attentive.”

VanderHoek describes how the WestJet crew worked with a nurse who was onboard and a volunteer translator to help care for the man after he fainted and fell to the floor in the aisle.

“It was beautiful to see strangers come together as humanity to help one another,” he wrote.

The WestJet incident came in the same week a man was dragged off a United Airlines flight and Air Canada bumped a 10-year-old boy from an oversold flight to Costa Rica.

VanderHoek’s letter was a viral hit – as of Thursday morning, his Facebook post has more than 17,000 shares and 88,000 likes and his story was picked up by Huffington Post Canada and CTV News, among other media outlets.

In a followup post, VanderHoek, president of Borderview International in Lynden, encouraged people to share positive news they experience as a customer.

“As a business owner myself, and growing up in a small business family, I realize it’s often the negative that gets posted or sent in,” he wrote. “That’s what inspired me to share this, and I hope we all can be a bit more proactive in sharing positive news.”

This story was originally published April 20, 2017 at 10:49 AM with the headline "Lynden man’s praise of Canadian flight crew becomes viral hit."