I recently flew to Ohio and got my ticket by the usual methods- go to a flight search engine and find the cheapest ticket that gets me there roughly when I need to go. It so happened that the airline I got was Midwest Airlines, a somewhat small regional carrier based out of Milwaukee. And, I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. The staff at the counter were pleasant, upbeat, and friendly. The lines were short. We didn’t always leave the exact minute we were supposed to, but we always got where we were going right on time (with a connection in Milwaukee, going there and back, I had 4 legs of flights with them).
The planes were small, but every one of them (again, 4 flights = 4 planes) had enough leg room for me. That’s saying something. I’m 6’4″ and lanky. There are a large number of cars on the market that I can not physically drive because my knees get stuck against the steering wheel and I can’t turn. Leg room is always an issue for me. For this reason (and motion sickness, and the hassles of security, and the weird layouts of most airports, and stress, and …, well, see previous post) I generally really dislike air travel and much prefer to drive wherever possible. But, I will say, Midwest Airlines was about as painless as possible.
And, now we get to the real secret of this post. The important part. Are you ready?
Midwest Airlines serves fresh baked chocolate chip cookies (for free) on every single flight. This is awesomeness. They actually cook them on the plane while you’re climbing. They’re not hugely out of the ordinary cookies, but they are pretty tasty, and the chocolate is still melty and gooey, for free on an airline. On every single flight, no matter how short. And then the plane smells like warm chocolate chip cookies. Where other airlines are cutting every thing in sight (charging for peanuts), this is a great little touch.
Even better, our flight attendant (I actually had the same one on two separate flights, one going and one coming back), Stacie, from Kona by way of Denver, was quite nice to start with, but then, on the second flight I had with her, when we got off the plane, she gave me 3 extra cookies that were left over!!! Mahalo! They seem to generally hand out the extras to kids, but apparently I qualified. Awesome.
As everyone I’ve talked to about it since, even frequent travelers, seem to be unaware of these free cookies, I thought I would do what I can to spread the word. So, if you happen to be searching airline tickets and Midwest and somebody else come up around the same price, I’d suggest going with the free cookies.
Cookies = Awesome!