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SWA Customer Stories: 25 Years of LUV Thanks to Southwest

cgregory
Explorer C
Thanks to Customers Matthew and Christie Gregory for sharing the story of how they met on a Southwest Airlines flight to Houston, Texas! Dear Southwest, My husband and I would like to thank you Southwest Airlines. More than twenty five years ago, the weekend of July 4th, 1989 to be exact, we met on a Southwest Airlines plane.  I do believe it was “LUV” at first sight.  The plane departed from Kansas City, Missouri and was headed for Houston, Texas.  If not for that flight, we may never have met, married four months later, and celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.  As we celebrated 25 years last October, we couldn’t help but reminisce about our lives together and how we met. We would like to share a little of our story with you.  I remember sitting in the section of the plane you used to have where the seats faced each other.  I was on one side of the plane and he was on the other.  I could hear him just a talking away to the people in his section but it was obvious that he didn’t know them.  I was intrigued as I wasn’t accustomed to people being that friendly with strangers, maybe that is why I was single.  When we stopped in Tulsa, I took the opportunity to get a better look and moved to the seat facing the back of the plane.  All of a sudden a family comes onboard and the father had to sit in Matthew’s section.  Of course I had to volunteer my seat so he could be with his family—that was only the right thing to do.  I could now see and talk to him, how perfect.  He didn’t look like the type of man I was usually attracted to.  He was wearing faded blue jeans, a Pat Magee T-shirt, blond hair and had what appeared to be a hospital band on his wrist (the band turned out to be from Oyster Bake in San Antonio, Texas).  I was dressed to the nines in a Liz Claiborne suit and obviously made an impression.  The gentleman sitting next to me offered me a drink coupon for a beer.  I thanked him and said I didn’t drink beer and asked if it would get me a discount for a beverage.  The man across from me offered to trade his coupon for a beverage as he was going to get a beer.  Matthew chimed in with “give her 5 minutes and she will own the airlines.”  By the time the plane landed in Houston, Matthew had my phone number.  He was on his way to his home town, San Antonio, Texas, to drive his car back to Independence, Missouri, my home town, so he would have transportation for the two months he would be working there.  We saw each other almost every day of those two months.  It was very hard to see him leave, I think it was just as hard on him as it only took him two days to call and ask if I would move to San Antonio.  That was the beginning of our past 25 years together. We still live in San Antonio and have a total of four children and three grandchildren (and one on the way!), and are looking forward to another 25 wonderful years together.

CGregory

Thank you so much for bringing us together. Sincerely, Matthew and Christie Gregory