Escort Reflections :

March 2009:

Reported by, Terry Bobbitt, American Airlines' Flight Attendant:

"Life in the airline industry is unlike anything I could have ever imagined.  Hired almost twenty five years ago to be a flight attendant, I pictured an adventurous life of traveling to fun and exciting places, meeting new people and learning customs from all over the world. Yes, all of that is true…and more.

You see, within the airline industry of employee interests and talents, lies another life of involvement around the globe.  What else do some of us do with our time off in life outside of American Airlines?

Meet one organization that has put medically fragile children and occasionally orphaned children together with the hearts of volunteers in the airline industry.  Airline Ambassadors was founded in 1996 for airline personnel to use their job privileges to help children.  

The Airline Ambassadors Children’s Escort Program aids children, coming into the United States, from all over the world.  These children arrive in the US to receive donated medical care, and sometimes, orphans are traveling to their new adoptive families.  Children's escort volunteers use their flight benefits to travel with these precious children, providing transportation, and tender loving care during this part of the child’s journey.  Upon completion of the medical care the children receive, the volunteers then accompany them back home to the families who eagerly await their arrival. All of us in the Children’s Escort Program are volunteers.  We wouldn’t have it any other way.

The children will make you laugh…and sometimes they make you cry….they ask you to sing, and at times they will get you to dance…or you find yourself buying whatever they want in an airport, overcome with the love you feel for this special person, as they so bravely journey along without their families."

To read Terry's stories and the reports from all of our escorts, please visit our Escort Stories listings...