Meet the Delta Captain Who Spent a Year’s Salary Chartering an Airbus to Take 112 Friends on a Retirement Flight to Hawaii

^{This article originally appeared on Business Insider.}

Keith Rosenkranz went to high school next to the north runway at Los Angeles International Airport.

“On rainy days, I would sit in the second-story window of my high school, and just watch the planes take off and land,” he told Business Insider. “And that was kind of a dream that I wanted to do that one day.”

Throughout his 33 years as a Delta Air Lines pilot, Rosenkranz would dip the plane’s wing toward his alma mater everytime he took off from LAX.

“There might be a young boy or young girl that’s sitting in that window that’s dreaming of flying just the way I did,” he said.

On February 28, the 64-year-old dipped the wing of an Airbus A330neo for the last time as part of what might just be the coolest retirement party ever.

After 16 months of planning, Rosenkranz chartered the widebody jet from Delta to transport 112 friends and family.

Aviation news sites including Simple Flying and One Mile at a Time reported on the charter after it gained attention on X.

Captain Rosenkranz, Delta A330-900 pilot, went all out for his retirement celebration! ?✈️ Chartering his own A330neo, he whisked his family and friends off to Hawaii for a whirlwind 24-hour adventure! #aviation #avgeek #planespotting pic.twitter.com/JwmZevJ75F

— AIRLINE VIDEOS (@airlinevideos) February 28, 2024

Delta’s A330-900 has 281 seats, although Rosenkranz said he chose the number of guests because he used a transportation company with two buses that could seat 56 people.

Passengers came from different stages of his life: from grade school through to college and the Air Force, Delta coworkers, and Texas neighbors.

Rosenkranz told BI he got the idea in October 2022 because many of his coworkers’ retirements were disrupted by