Two Alaska Airlines employees are now engaged after a flight attendant planned her proposal during a special “Fly With Pride” event for Pride month.
Although it tends to take on a more celebratory tone nowadays, it’s worth remembering that Pride parades began as protests in the wake of high-profile injustices against LGBTQ+ Americans.
RELATED STORIES
And while it would be premature to say that this fight is over , it tends to occur on smaller battlefields than it once did as people often find themselves defending their right to exist from other individuals rather than nationwide systems.
Granted, that can be less true depending on where you are in the United States. But while it can be easy to see ulterior motives in the way major corporations embrace Pride month, the fact that they show support at all gives us a hint at how far our society has come compared to even 20 years ago.
Because even taking into account how unusual it is for couples to get married on planes to begin with, a proposal like the one we recently saw unfold on Alaska Airlines may have been almost unthinkable in decades past.
Last year, Alaska Airlines established their first annual “Fly With Pride” event.
According to People , this event took the form of a jet-setting “Pride parade in the sky” that saw participating passengers tour Portland, San Francisco, and San Diego after taking off in Seattle.
And as we can see, that year also saw the airline unveil this festive plane with rainbow lettering for the event.
And for one couple who already held the airline in a special place in their hearts, this event just took on a new, powerful meaning.
Not only do they both work for Alaska Airlines (one through its regional partner Skywest), but they revealed in a video released by the airline that they actually met on one of the airline’s planes.
So when flight attendant Veronica Rojas let the airline in on her plan to propose to her pilot girlfriend Alejandra Moncayo during a “Fly With Pride” flight, Alaska was eager to make that dream come true for her on the anniversary of the Pride plane’s maiden flight.
So about halfway through the flight, Rojas called Moncayo to the cabin and proposed to her in Spanish over the PA system.
And Rojas wanted to show she had been practicing the language because as she put it, “I was trying to impress her by speaking Spanish, but the problem with that is that I don’t actually speak Spanish so it did not work out very well.”
But while we can see that the couple’s coworkers were prepared to celebrate her engagement, Moncayo surprised all of them by making her own proposal once they had left the plane.
As Rojas said, “All the love and support is just super overwhelming and amazing.”
And while both had already had a strong affinity for Alaska, they appreciate the airline even more for making their special moment possible.
In Moncayo’s words, “It’s awesome, I feel very, very loved today. Alaska has always been my number one forever. I can definitely tell how much they care.”
And according to KTLA, they weren’t the only ones feeling the love that day as the airline also gave every passenger who witnessed the double proposal free tickets for a future flight.
And as we can see in this video, those other passengers certainly deserved points for enthusiasm.
h/t: People
