After their flight was cancelled a group of 13 strangers banded together to drive a rental van more than 10 hours to get where they needed to be.
After their original flight on December 4 from Orlando to Knoxville, Tennessee, US was delayed twice and then cancelled the would-be passengers faced a 48 hour wait until the next flight.
As the stranded travellers milled around the customer service desk, one enterprising woman shouted out an invite - she would be getting a rented vehicle and anybody who wanted to drive with her could join.
With many unable to postpone their plans for two days, a number of people went for the offer.
Alanah Story was one of those who joined for the drive north to Knoxville, along with her mum and godmother.
Over the next 10 hours, friendships were made, naps were had and after Alanah started posting updates on TikTok, hundreds of thousands of people tuned in to follow the journey.
She told Today.com: "So we post the video and, like, we're not really thinking anything's gonna come of it. But within, like, 30 minutes, it is starting to get hundreds of thousands of views,"
As the journey went on the motley crew of travellers kept updating followers on Alanah's TikTok and gained a large following.
Everytime they updated the page the viewing figures just kept going up leading to a lot of excitement and not much sleep. Alanah said she only got 20 minutes shut eye all night.
The next morning the group arrived in Knoxville and went their separate ways but some have agreed to stay in touch, setting up a group Whatsapp.
Alanah has also arranged to go to a karaoke night with one of the other passengers.
People carried on watching Alanah's updates and
Musing on why her posts became so popular, Alanah said: "I feel like a big part of it is, because in my video, you can clearly see our differences. And, you know, I feel like we're so divided right now and to be able to see just a ragtag group of strangers who are totally different from each other, come together and just enjoy a crazy situation together
.
"I feel like it resonates with a lot of people."
Another one of the passengers, Michelle Miller echoed similiar thoughts.
She said: "This is the key take-home message: Why did this go viral? Why did we have 20,000 comments of people that were happy (about) the viralness of it all?
"(Because) it's about coming together when life gives you a s---ty situation, you turn it into something awesome."
