Pilot gives tearful farewell to passengers on his final flight and becomes TikTok star

A video of a pilot’s emotional farewell to passengers on his final flight has gone viral again, this time on TikTok.

Captain Conrad made the announcement that he was retiring, after working as a Delta Air Lines pilot for over 43 years and gave some impressive statistics about his long career.

The 30-second clip began with the pilot asking the passengers: “How many people here were born before 1976?”

To which a number of people on the flight raised their hands.

“Oh we got a lot of old people on this plane. I’m disappointed,” he joked.

The pilot looked emotional and paused for a moment before making his heartfelt speech about his career.

“1976... I took my first training flight in the Air Force, at the Air Force Academy in Colorado.

“So 43 years later, and eight different airplanes, and about 10,000-12,000 flights and 25,000 hours of flying, I’m glad to have you here on my last flight.”

Applause erupted from the passengers who were obviously as impressed as we were when they heard those statistics.

The original video was uploaded onto YouTube a year ago by user aggiestudd07, where they said in the description that it was “such a neat opportunity to experience this as a family.”

On YouTube, the video received over 2.5 million views, 121,000 likes and over 3,000 comments.

The longer two and half minute video show’s Captain Conrad generosity, as he announced that passengers are entitled to free drinks.

“I’m authorizing free drinks to anybody who wants one. We’ll put it on Delta’s Tab,” he said.

The clip has recently been re-uploaded to TikTok where it has gone viral for a second time, with over 17.7 million views, 3.2 million likes and 18,000 comments from people who loved watching the endearing moment.

One person wrote: “You can tell how much he loved his job.”

“Just think about that...12,000 flights, and he made sure every single flight people made it to their destination safely… that’s a real one,” another person commented.

Someone else replied: “This is heartwarming. Love this!”

“I got chills and my eyes are sweating,” a fourth person said.