Aid for Students

Los Angeles just may be the City of Angeles. The parents of the high school students are apt to believe it when they learn what the operations people of Northwest Airlines at Los Angeles International Airport did last month.

When Northwest’s Flight 190 was being buttoned down for its 12:30 p.m. departure, nearly half of a group of 40 Japanese high school students were still mired in U.S. Customs following their long flight from Japan.

Northwest put compassion over schedule and waited more than an hour until the final one of the group, none of whom could speak English, was on board. They were, in fact, bound for the Puget Sound area for a three-week intensive English language course preparatory to going on to Phoenix and a yearlong exchange program.

But one of the flight attendants said, “We wanted to do everything possible to keep the group together. Most of us (passengers and crew), are parents and that’s how we would want our youngsters treated--especially in a foreign country.”

TONY and NANCY BACON

Vancouver, Wash.