SEA airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was hit by chaos as luggage piled up at the busy airport. As a consequence of holiday flight cancelations and delays, many travelers are struggling to reunite with their luggage.
Flights have largely returned to normal but luggage issues continue. The Washington Post shares how some fliers fear they may never see their luggage again.
The Seattle Times reports that the problem began over the Christmas weekend and intensified on the following Monday. Allegedly, Sea-Tac had a surge in flight cancellations when an ice storm hit the region Friday, with 699 arriving and departing flights canceled and 266 delayed. All three runways closed as freezing rain turned roads into sheets of ice, and passengers were stranded at the airport for most of the day. As temperatures went up, airport operations returned to normal around 4 p.m.
Following the incident, on Tuesday, the airport strongly advised travellers to contact airlines directly for flight information and baggage concerns.
Beyond the lost luggage is the airlines handling of said luggage and the lack of faith that fliers develop. Read on to find out more.
Related: Southwest Airlines Pilot: ‘Crew Members Are Sitting In Hotels And Airports With Nowhere To Go’
What We Know:
Piles of lost/ delayed bags are still littered all over Seattle-Tacoma Int’l Airport! Travel troubles lingering into the New Year.
This is just one luggage stack of many.
Do you use a GPS tracker?? @vszyb did and her bag to D.C. went on quite the journey…@KIRO7Seattle #6pm pic.twitter.com/kxuOf1Q7TN
— Deedee Sun (@DeedeeKIRO7) January 3, 2023
Across social media, many images of luggage stacks show the chaos in the airport for travelers wanting to return home. One Twitter user commented ‘AirTags to the rescue’ which seems to have minimized some of the stress for some fliers.
Some fliers share stories of losing luggage due to connecting flights being canceled. Others complained that airlines were not being honest about the state of their luggage.
Do Airtags help?
Kiro 7 shared the story of one flier who did have Apple AirTags. Valerie Szybala, was flying from Chicago to Washington D.C. after an international trip and used her tracker to see where her luggage ended up. She documented her journey on Twitter.
I’d just like everyone to know that @united has lost track of my bag and is lying about it. My apple AirTag shows that it has been sitting in a residential apartment complex for over a day. Out back by the dumpsters, I have found other emptied United Airlines bags. pic.twitter.com/fcoq4nj3zb
— valerie szybala. (@vszyb) January 1, 2023
The passenger documents the draining process of tracking and waiting for her luggage as she watches the journey via her GPS tracker.
Szybala ended up getting her bag back from a courier.
“I think without the tracker and without a tweet thread going viral, I wouldn’t have my bag back today,” she said. “This end part of the process was a madhouse, and it needs to be fixed – it’s not acceptable,” Szybala said.
Airline responses
United did share a statement in regards to Szybala’s case; “The service our baggage delivery vendor provided does not meet our standards, and we are investigating what happened to lead to this service failure.”
Seattle-based Alaska Airlines said “Our Alaska team worked hard to reunite guests with their bags, and we are pleased to say that we’ve returned 10,000 bags to their owners. We are fully staffed in Seattle, and last week we augmented with additional management staff to get through all the baggage returns.”
Related: Winter Weather Causes Over 5,100 Flight Cancellations During Holidays In U.S.
