How A Southwest Airlines Flight Crew Made Randy Travis Smile

A good time follows Randy Travis wherever he goes. The country legend was on a Southwest Airlines flight recently and the flight attendants couldn’t help but host an in-flight dance party set to Travis’ music. 

When the flight crew realized they had the Country Music Hall of Famer on the flight, they started playing some of his many hit songs while passengers boarded, Taste of Country first reported.

Then, Travis got a front row seat to the antics of the flight crew as they delivered their safety instructions with an eye towards entertaining the legendary singer. In a video shared on social media by a fellow traveler, Travis can be seen cracking up laughing as the flight attendant hammed it up for the star. 

The joyful footage of this music icon is a welcome sight. In 2013 Travis suffered a massive stroke “that necessitated brain surgery and robbed him of his ability to play guitar and perform. It also limited his speech. Doctors told his wife, Mary, that he had only a 1 or 2 percent chance of survival,” per AARP. Travis defied the odds and continues to recover, and as wife Mary told Rolling Stone in 2020, thanks in part, to their deep faith. “I know that in the hospital every single night I had conversations with God. There’s no way you can get through something that changes your life so much in an instant, without having that faith. We leaned real hard on God. Every day we still do. It’s like they say, ‘By the grace of God, I walk.’ That’s exactly the way we feel.”

The fact that the video of Travis was shared on TikTok is no surprise. The “Forever and Ever, Amen” singer has 2.6 million followers on TikTok, treating his ever-growing fan base to a steady stream of fun, kind-hearted, and occasionally downright goofy videos shared on the site.

It’s also not surprising that Travis was spotted on an airplane. The man who Garth Brooks said single-handedly saved country music, has been out and about a lot recently.  He made an appearance at the Kentucky Derby and at the ACM Awards in Frisco, Texas.  

Keep on smiling, Randy Travis.