Flight attendant leaves surprise notes of encouragement for passengers

It's pretty rare to board a plane to find something special waiting at your seat (you're more likely to find a pile of filth or a full barf bag). Even the days of a blanket and pillow are long gone on domestic flights, but Taylor Tippett is trying to bring back that personal touch to air travel. The Washington D.C.-based American Airlines flight attendant tapes encouraging notes to the windows of various seats to simply brighten their day.

Tippett posts photos of each note that she writes to her Instagram feed with the hashtag #wordsfromthewindowseat, and she's amassed 122K followers as of the time of writing. In a recent post, she announced that Discovery Channel aired a short video about her project on its short online documentary series "This Happened Here."

Tippett told Road Warrior Voices that she loves to encourage people through words, and her personal morning routine includes prayers, self-pep talks and even the occasional dance party. Her project began when one day on a flight she was feeling a little down and started writing encouraging thoughts in a journal. She pasted the positive note to the window. She had written "be kind to yourself," and wanted other people to believe in her positive mantra.

She says:

"That's what I want to accomplish through all of this. I want people to feel loved, heard, and cared for. We are all fighting hard battles and I wanted people to know they aren't alone. If I can do that by using my words to lift someone up, it's all worth it."

Originally, she was posting the notes on the windows for passengers to enjoy, but switched to placing them inside the safety card in the seat pocket because cleaners were often removing them. Also, some passengers didn't necessarily like finding a note on the window, although she still takes a photo of the note on the window for Instagram.

Here are a few of our favorites: