Teen BA apprentice goes viral for saving couple's Valentine’s Day plans

A teen apprentice has gone viral and praised as a "future CEO" after saving a couple’s Valentine’s Day travel plans.

Daniel Thompson, 19, from Ruislip, a BA customer service agent, says he was “just doing his job” when he ensured City worker Piyush Patel, 53 and his wife could still go away on a romantic getaway with their friends.

The group had travelled from Surrey to spend Valentine’s Day seeing the northern lights in Iceland, but Storm Dennis meant their flight was cancelled.

Going above and beyond, Mr Thompson, who began working at Heathrow Airport in October, found all airline flights still running to cold destinations the same day.

He then found out how to get the group quick visas to the United States and got them on a “fantastic” break to New York within hours.

Mr Patel, an advisor to London’s Federation of Small Businesses, told the Standard he sat in his hotel room in the Big Apple and realised he wanted to do something to thank the apprentice, so wrote about his efforts on LinkedIn.

The post said: “I am typing this post up at 4.40am from The Grand Hyatt in New York reflecting back on how I enjoyed the flight here, the complimentary lounge access and thinking how proud his parents must be of him.”

It got more than 70,000 likes and Mr Patel could see it got millions of views from his personal profile stats.

Following the online praise, Mr Thompson is now set to have a private meeting with BA CEO Alex Cruz. He will also be one of 25 employees selected from 45,000 colleagues being honoured at a company event at Heathrow Airport next week.

He said he “still couldn’t believe it”.

“It was one of their birthdays in a week’s time as well as a Valentine’s break and Times Square and New York seemed of a par with a romantic trip to Iceland," he said.

“People have been putting under that LinkedIn post that I am a future CEO.

“My family are so proud… I’m trying to keep my head as small as I can. At the end of the day I was technically just doing my job, but my whole plan is to go into management eventually.”

The apprentice said the incident proves that young people are capable, and called for more positive feedback on social media.

“People were so shocked someone had put something positive on social media. Especially for people at my age, it’s huge," he said.

"I would like more feedback to be positive than negative, everyone is quick to complain and no one is quick to praise.”

Mr Patel said: “We watched it all unfold, getting millions of views, and it made our holiday. We were thinking 'you know what, he deserves everything he gets'.

“We connected on Facebook and he rang thanking me for what happened.

“I said: mate, you deserved it, you’re a young guy and you need to inspire people of your age. If Daniel can do it, I can do it.”

A BA spokesperson said: “We’re really proud that this customer has gone out of his way while he’s on holiday to thank our colleague, Daniel, for his amazing help.”