Last week, I flew on Virgin America for the first time. It was a pretty amazing experience, which I’ll cover in more detail in an upcoming post. For now, I want to focus on a single detail that really surprised me.

I was seated in one of the bulkhead seats at the front of the plane. This type of seat tends to have a lot of legroom, but no under-seat storage. So, I had to place my carry on bag in the overhead bin, and I assumed that I would have to go fetch it once we reached cruising altitude.

However, my expectation was incorrect. In fact, before I even thought about getting my bag down, the flight attendant stopped by my row and asked:

“May I get your bag for you?”

I don’t recall if the other person in my row even answered. He was probably just as shocked as I was. Somehow, one of us nodded or mumbled something in the affirmative, and the flight attendant located our bags and handed them to us. On a long flight after a long day of travel, this small gesture made a huge difference.

All of this happened without any of the passengers requesting it. Granted, I don’t know if every Virgin America flight will feature this level of service, but I really hope it’s a fleet-wide thing. With the bar set so low for air travel these days, a simple courtesy like helping passengers with their bags makes people significantly happier with their flying experience, and encourages them to tell others about it, as well.