万花筒 Kaleidoscope 2007-09-05&09-06, 绝世好机长

Millions of Americans are traveling this holiday weekend, many flying somewhere for the last weekend of summer, despite complaints that flying has never been worse.This summer, cancellations nearly doubled, delays are at the worst in a decade and planes are of more full than ever. But our friends at the Wall Street Journal found a bright spot. United Airlines captain Denny Flanagan. ABC’s Barbara Pinto reports.

At the end of what has been a hellish summer for air travelers, he is literally¹ a gift from the heavens.

For those folks going to Washington today, I will be your captain, my name's Denny Flanagan.

For 21 years now, this former navy pilot has put the friendly in friendly skies.

And this is actually my first flight, today, alright everybody wake up.

With a sense of humor and personal touch.(Hi, good morning, welcome boarding, good morning! ) Not only does everyone get an individual welcome, this father of five has also been known to buy food for planeloads of passengers on delayed flights. He snaps photos of dogs in the cargo² hole to show owners their pets are safe and calls the parents of children traveling alone.

You know, I wanna treat them like I treat my family. And that works. It's like hospitality.You stand at your door and greet people when they come in, and you say goodbye , you stand at the porch wave them.

Flanagan’s brand of hospitality includes sending hand-written notes to frequent flyers and raffling³ off bottles of wine. (How about that, a bottle of chill chardonnay, from a pilot of popping.) He is generating quite a following in the air.

Makes you feel like somebody who cares and has tried to make the experience better.

And online ,one of the many posts on flyertalk.com says, his effort rubbed off on the crew too, they were great.

Have you written a blog?

No, coz I don’t know how to get on the computer.

But behind the controls of a 757, he is stellar. For Good morning America, Barbara Pinto, ABC news, Chicago.

1 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

2 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

3 raffling   

v.以抽彩方式售（物）( raffle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• During each show we will be raffling a fabulous prize. 每场表演期间，我们将以抽彩方法送出大奖。 来自柯林斯例句