Man who was only passenger on United Airlines Boeing 737-900 flight shares what the surreal experience was like

This United Airlines passenger experienced what was essentially a private flight from Cincinnati to Chicago aboard a Boeing 737-900.

He was literally the only passenger on the plane.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, made possible only by a perfect storm of airport delays.

You’ll never believe the combination of factors that created this scenario.

What went wrong with his first flight

A Reddit user who goes by Jaykwono explained how United Airlines ‘saved’ him from British Airways.

The main culprit was the weather.

On July 4, intense thunderstorms caused massive disruption at Chicago O’Hare Airport with over 1,000 flight delays and cancellations.

The passenger was originally flying from London Heathrow to Chicago ORD on British Airways but, because of the Chicago storms, his flight was diverted and forced to land at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Obviously, he wasn’t the only passenger affected, but landing at an airport is like opening the barn door: you know where the horses are coming from, but you can’t control where they’re going.

When he landed, things got even weirder for an even crazier combination of factors.

This is how he ended up alone on this Boeing 737-900

We don’t know how the other British Airways passengers got home, but Jaykwono managed to buy a ticket on a regularly scheduled United flight (UA1813) heading to Chicago later that evening.

UA1813 was originally scheduled to leave Cincinnati at 6:12 PM, but the Chicago ground stop kept it pinned to the tarmac for hours.

By the time the flight was finally cleared to leave at 1:28 AM the next morning, every other passenger who had been booked on UA1813 had either cancelled, changed their flights, or found alternative transportation.

He was the only one left.

The Boeing 737-900 isn’t the largest plane in the world, but it still must’ve felt massive.

Since they had only one passenger, the crew gave him the ultimate VIP treatment.

They made personalized announcements, gave him food, invited him into the cockpit, and even gifted him a rare United Airlines trading card.

“UA1813 was supposed to depart from CVG to ORD around 7pm [but] did not depart until 1:30am due to storms. I had the whole flight to myself. The flight crew was incredibly kind – let me meet the pilots, sit in the cockpit for a pic, sit anywhere I wanted on the plane, gave me free snacks, and even gave special announcements throughout the flight directly to me,” he wrote in the post caption.

Because airlines still need to move their planes to their destination hubs to keep the next day’s schedule intact, United flew the plane anyway.

No one likes to have their journey disrupted by bad weather.

But, for this guy, this was probably a nice exception.