A standby ticket is a type of ticket that does not guarantee a seat on a specific flight but allows the traveller to wait at the airport and board a flight if there is a seat available after all confirmed passengers have boarded.

Jaroslawski said his sister had been unsuccessful in her attempts to fly out of Doha. Even though there were seats open on a flight from Doha to Chicago, the airline was refusing to take any more passengers due to weight management issues.

A similar scenario played out when Jaroslawski’s unnamed sister tried to board a flight to Washington DC instead. “At the gate for the flight to DC, the Qatar Airways employees tell her the same thing. They aren’t bringing on any more passengers due to weight management,” the American founder of FreightCaviar wrote on X.

At this point, Jaroslawski’s sister was getting anxious, nervous and worried. As she stood morosely under the departure screens wondering how she could reach the US, her luck turned.

“A man walked up to her and asked her why she is so sad. My sister told him everything about the situation,” wrote Jaroslawski. The man told her to wait at the business class lounge and assured her that things would work out.

It turned out that the stranger was none other than Badr Mohammed Al Meer, the CEO of Qatar Airways.

Badr Mohammed Al Meer kept his word and got a business class ticket for Jaroslawski’s sister to New York City.

As she boarded the flight, a Qatar Airways employee told her she was “very lucky” because the CEO rarely walked around the airport as he was walking that day.

“Incredible the power some people hold in this world. With a snap of a finger everything went from sour to super sweet,” Jaroslawski wrote in his X thread on June 19.

The story reached thousands of people who marvelled at the woman’s fortune. “Great story. Inspiring,” wrote one person in the comments section. “Let it be a reminder to do something nice for someone today,” said another. “Amazing,” a third person said.