Delta Air Lines Flight Crew Grant Aladdin Actress’ Wish and Help Her Catch a ‘Magic Carpet’ to Broadway Performance of a Lifetime

Here’s a feel-good air travel story, which feels like an anomaly these days, since almost every airport and airline news story we read seems to involve passengers or flight attendants or TSA agents behaving badly, like these three Miami TSA officers who were caught on video, stealing from passengers.

Per Good Morning America, “Broadway actor Mikayla Renfrow, an understudy for Aladdin, was on a flight from Europe back to the U.S. when she received a call to fill in the lead role of Jasmine. “I was four hours into my flight. Our Jasmine, Sonya [Balsara], had fallen ill. The other understudy in the building had an injury. That’s what kind of pushed us into, ‘Mik needs to get to the theater,'” Renfrow recalled. Success seemed unlikely: Renfrow would need to deplane, go through customs at JFK International Airport and make her way to Manhattan, more than a one-hour taxi ride away — all before curtain call.”

So the Delta flight crew, under the lead of flight supervisor Leicha Richardson, who Renfrow called her ‘angel flight attendant’, arranged a modern day ‘magic carpet ride’ in the form of a Blade helicopter. Once Renfrow cleared customs, she was whisked back up in the air in a helicopter.

Renfrow documented the entire experience in a TikTok video, where she shares lots more details about what happened and how the Delta flight crew went above and beyond to help her get to the show on time.

@mikrenfrow The story of how i had to be helicoptered from JFK to play Jasmine in 🧞‍♂️Aladdin in Broadway…WHAT. #fyp #broadway #delta #blade#@delta @BLADE ♬ Epic Music(863502) – Draganov89

The video really shows how incredible the Delta crew was, from the pilot trying to secure a gate closer to customs and the flight attendant moving her up to first class so she could get some rest before her big performance and so she could deplane first. This is the opposite experience these 22 JetBlue passengers recently had when they missed a tight connection.

I’ve made this helicopter trip before but with a different company and it’s amazing because of the views and the fact that it only takes seven minutes to travel from JFK International Airport to downtown Manhattan.

Thanks to the quick transfer, Renfrow made it to the New Amsterdam Theatre in time to play Jasmine and Richardson was also able to attend the performance as an audience member.

As the correspondent for GMA said, “a wise blue man once said, you ain’t never had a friend like me.”

On a related note: One of the nicest flight attendants I’ve ever had was Candy, who was working my flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles. I felt this way about Candy even before I learned, 40 minutes prior to landing, that we had a fallen soldier on our plane, which turned it into the most emotional flight of my life.

Watch the full Good Morning America story here:

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