Hoobastank, Simple Plan, The Used and LØLØ Perform Aboard a Southwest Flight That Beat the Nationwide Ground Stop, and Passenger Videos Go Viral
On November 13, the day the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop, a Southwest Airlines charter flight took off from Los Angeles International Airport in California just before the order took effect, bound for Orlando, Florida. Its roughly 125 passengers got a concert at about 35,000 feet: Hoobastank, Simple Plan and The Used, three rock bands that rose to fame in the 2000s, and singer LØLØ took turns performing their best-known songs in the cabin, and videos shot by passengers then went viral on social media.
According to Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, which had a staffer on board, the flight was a charter. On the morning of November 13, passengers met the four acts at the gate in Terminal 1 at Los Angeles International Airport, posed for photos and sang along, and found Vans Warped Tour goodie bags waiting on their seats, with many not knowing the artists would also perform in the air. Southwest, a sponsor of the tour, ran the flight as part of its Live at 35 series, which has staged surprise performances at cruising altitude since 2011. Southwest shared clips of the performances on its Instagram Stories, and the tour's official Instagram account also posted cabin footage.
LØLØ opened with a four-song set over Texas. Hoobastank frontman Doug Robb and guitarist Dan Estrin then performed The Reason, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2004, with Robb asking passengers to switch on their phone flashlights as the cabin lights went down. The Used frontman Bert McCracken and guitarist Joey Bradford played four songs as the plane passed over New Orleans, Louisiana, including The Taste of Ink and All That I've Got. Simple Plan frontman Pierre Bouvier closed the show with Perfect, I'm Just a Kid, I'd Do Anything and Welcome to My Life, and Hoobastank returned for one more song moments before landing in Orlando.
Passenger clips posted to TikTok and Instagram spread quickly, with viewers calling it the best flight delay ever. Every plane was grounded today, but the emo gods made sure this one flew, LØLØ wrote on Instagram. Hoobastank reposted passenger videos to the band's official Instagram Stories. According to Rock Sound, Robb said on November 14 that the flight was one of the last to depart before the ground stop took effect.
The nationwide ground stop was issued at 3:54 p.m. ET on November 13 and lifted at 8:15 p.m. ET, lasting more than four hours, and more than 12,500 flights were canceled across November 13 and 14. According to Simple Flying, aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations. A Southwest spokesperson told The California Post the plane was already in flight when the ground stop took effect and later arrived in Florida. The four acts were traveling to Orlando for the Vans Warped Tour stop at Camping World Stadium on November 14 and 15, with Simple Plan and Hoobastank performing on November 14 and The Used on November 15. Tour founder Kevin Lyman said in an Instagram video on the morning of November 14 that a few bands would cancel because of the ground stop, that some acts were driving in from as far away as Chicago, Illinois, and Houston, Texas, and that some Saturday sets would move to Sunday with extended set times.
Source: Billboard
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 资料图：西南航空一架波音737-700在洛杉矶国际机场进近，Eric Salard摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经Wikimedia Commons，已裁为1600×900，彩色；非本次航班画面。/ File photo: a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 on approach at Los Angeles International Airport (photo by Eric Salard, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons), cropped to 1600x900; not a photo of this flight.
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- 2026-11-14Hoobastank, Simple Plan, The Used and LØLØ Perform Aboard a Southwest Flight That Beat the Nationwide Ground Stop, and Passenger Videos Go ViralThis story
