The passengers of an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Anchorage, Alaska were treated to a delightful show on Wednesday when a pilot snuck into the plane to surprise his girlfriend with the marriage proposal she had been waiting for in the past few months.
Brandy Hollenbeck did not know her boyfriend, pilot Eric Greener of Ravn Alaska was onboard the plane, hidden from her sight inside the pilot's cockpit, where he was waiting for the right time to pop the question. Hollenbeck was serving beverages to passengers when a voice that eerily sounded like her boyfriend's came cackling over the sound system and began telling the story of how they met as the plane cruised at an altitude of 34,000 feet.
The couple said their love story actually began two months before they met, when Hollenbeck met Greener's mother on a flight and they hit it off. His mother eventually told Hollenbeck she was perfect for her son, and the two working in the same industry in Alaska, she should look him up. She never did, but as fate would have it, Greener first saw Hollenbeck devouring a cheeseburger while she waited for her flight at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
"A flight attendant who's got the courage to eat a cheeseburger in the terminal is a woman to know," Greener said in a video of the proposal taken by an Alaska Airlines employee.
In an interview with the Alaska Dispatch News, Hollenbeck says she was shocked to hear her love story and eventually told one of the passengers that the voice over the public address system was talking about her and her boyfriend.
"Brandy Hollenbeck, I've loved you since the moment I met you and I want to be the man for you for the rest of your life. Will you marry me?" said Greener before he walked into the passenger cabin, where a shocked Hollenbeck met him halfway.
Of course, she meant to say yes, but she was so shocked that she forgot to do so until a passenger reminded her.
The proposal had been in Greener's mind for the last several months, during which he saved some money to buy his soon-to-be-wife an engagement ring. Meanwhile, Hollenbeck had been thinking of when he would finally bring up the idea of marriage. She started to worry that the couple would soon need to have "the talk" if her fiancé did not ask her soon.
Little did Hollenbeck know, Greener was in cahoots with another flight attendant who was one of Hollenbeck's close friends. He also spoke with the pilots and the gate agents to let him on the plane, something allowed by the CASS (Cockpit Access Security System), which lets gate agents allow pilots of participating airlines to ride on the plane whether in the passenger cabin or in the cockpit free of charge.
"We tried to keep her busy in the back of the plane during boarding so she wouldn't see (her boyfriend) Eric board," RieAnn Fullwood, Hollenbeck's friend, says in a blog post by the airlines.
The couple has started planning their wedding on Thursday.
