It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a ... baby boy!

The birth, assisted by two doctors who happened to be aboard, went without a hitch, and the Boeing 737 landed soon afterwards in Denver, where the mother and baby were met by medical personnel and taken to a hospital, airline spokesman Chris Mainz said. “My understanding is that everything was very smooth, and they’re doing well,” Mainz said. The mother was not identified.

She went into labour about 100 miles north of the Colorado capital on Southwest Flight 441, en route from Chicago to Salt Lake City, according to Mainz.

“She rang her call button and notified the flight attendants that she was going into labour, and they situated her in the back of the airplane, in the aft galley, and that’s where the baby was born,” he said.

He said the other passengers, informed of the delivery by the crew, greeted the news with a round of applause.

Births on commercial airline flights are “pretty unusual,” Mainz said, adding, “this is first I’ve heard of in several years.” He said the mother was not charged for the additional passenger, but she did not earn any extra frequent flyer miles, either.