American Airlines flight attendant spills tray of drinks on airline's CEO

Dallas-Fort Worth-based American Airlines flight attendant Maddie Peters finally had the privilege of meeting her CEO - something not everyone working at a Fortune 500 company can say.

Peters has never spilled a drink in her four years as a flight attendant. She also never imagined that when she inevitably did, it would be an entire tray of them - and that the chairman and CEO of the largest airline in the world would be the passenger on the receiving end.

She was working a recent flight from Phoenix to D-FW, serving more than half a dozen pre-departure drinks to the first-class cabin, when a passenger unknowingly bumped into her.

"I had a full tray with drinks on it, when the passenger in front of me stops in the aisle and backs up," sending the entire tray of drinks flying, Peters described in her Instagram post Monday.

Half of the drinks fell on her and the other half went into the lap of American CEO Doug Parker.

Though she was mortified, Parker was a good sport about it, Peters said. He understood that accidents happen, laughed it off and caught up with her after the attendants had finished serving the first-class passengers.

"He asked where I was from, what I did before coming to American and how long I've worked here. All small talk. Honestly, the rest is a blur. I was still in shock that it had even happened," Peters said.

The flight attendant said that the CEO introduced himself to the staff as he boarded the plane, but that she had gained an entirely new respect for him after seeing the way he handled her accident with humility. Parker even took a photo with Peters.