On Christmas Day this year, my family and I joined perhaps the most envied vacationers of the season. I am a Southwest Airlines passenger. Our story was relatively tame when it came to travel horror stories. did After a few arguments and a lot of credit card usage, my partner, my 15-month-old daughter, and I got a hotel room for the night, a one-way rental car, a new child-her seat, and made the 7-hour trek. I was. Bay Area the next day.
Our luggage was not so lucky. 4 suitcases, a stroller and a child seat are still not enough. But my family and other passengers equipped some of the lost items with tracking devices, providing a window into what was going on inside the opaque and insane vacation trip meltdown. . But while tracking devices can provide their owners with a wealth of up-to-date location data, a combination of airline policies, security measures, and general system-wide disruptions can lead to There's not much you can do with it. Unlike postal carriers and delivery services, there is no public system for tracking your belongings through Southwest Airlines or any other major airline. Thousands of passengers wait in hours-long luggage lines, roam rooms full of lost luggage, and try to contact customer service systems crushed by a deluge of outraged passengers. Then the shortcomings of the technology become apparent. On social media, Southwest customers lamented that checking bags in many ways adds another layer to their travel woes.Some self-proclaimed leaflets claim that airlines Reject Checked Release After the flight is canceled, the luggage will be returned to the passenger. Others, like me, at least got to some destination, but seemingly orphaned the bag in the process. Countless others have reported having their luggage completely lost, or have found solace in Reddit threads offering tips. Even if I look at a stranger Helps reunite passengers and belongings. A Southwest spokesperson said the company's team "uses procedures to return baggage during irregular operations," and moves baggage out of cargo facilities and airports to keep customers in their possession. said he began to reunite with “We will make every attempt to reconnect customers with their baggage at no cost to them. If necessary, we will use our delivery partners to return the baggage,” the spokesperson said. A few months ago, I wrote about how I used personal tracking technology to find and eventually recover a stolen car. I also interviewed several other San Francisco citizens who were using devices like Apple AirTags and tile trackers to track their stolen property, but police policy forced the location to be We talked about how limited your ability to get your belongings back, even if you could identify them to the inch. . On Monday my partner drove to Auckland International Airport to file a lost luggage report. A customer service representative was able to find the stroller I checked at the gate in Long Beach. Probability is high. This matched what the AirTag on my daughter's car seat told us on Tuesday afternoon. It was still at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. Data even provided relief and control in chaotic situations. That was until the AirTag kicked in. By Monday evening, the AirTag attached to the child seat was no longer at the airport, but at a small detached house about 14km away. There didn't seem to be any warehouses nearby, nor was there any other simple explanation as to why the seats came here. The car seat was most likely stolen and the rest of the luggage did not have a tracker to monitor its whereabouts. is not. Nausea returned. Child seats are easy to replace, but not all luggage. A vintage dollhouse that my daughter bought for Christmas. Part of electronic equipment. dosage. We were able to reach out to the home owner who lives out of state and rents the property after tweeting to the official Southwest account. Southwest's Twitter account asked me to send them a direct message with more information, which I did. "I wish there was more information to share on how to move forward," a Southwest representative responded in a DM. We should be able to see what's going on." Denver resident Isabel Pippenger, who was due to travel to Portland, Oregon for Christmas, said she and her family had already checked their luggage when the Southwest flight was cancelled. However, instead of returning the package to its owner, Pippenger and others were told the package was still on its way to Portland. "You have to file a report for lost or damaged baggage," Pippenger said in an interview. “So when I get to Portland, I know I need to send it back to[Denver International Airport]and I can go pick it up.” Pippenger also had an AirTag tracking one of the bags and watched helplessly standing motionless on a Denver tarmac. Three days later, Pippenger said the bag was still hanging in the air. "We've seen movement back and forth between the C gates and the D gates," she said. "But we're not far enough to go looking for it." A Southwest Airlines spokesperson said it was too cumbersome to remove checked baggage from the plane after it was loaded, and that the plane had to move eventually, even if no passengers were on board. The aircraft is expected to be in another location and those bags are expected to be in that location as well. ``It's a very complex process and part of how networks work together, if everything is working correctly, of course,'' the spokesperson said. Southwest launched an area of its website on Wednesday dedicated to reporting and finding missing packages. Additional information can be found at www.southwest.com/help/baggage/lost-damaged-baggage, a representative said. Customers can also speak with representatives at the Baggage Service Offices at the airports we operate from or contact customer service in the Southwest, although representatives have advised that the company is still experiencing unusually high call volumes. I warned you that As of Wednesday evening, I have little confidence in seeing that child seat again, but I am hopeful about the rest of my luggage. And maybe invest in some more AirTags. Megan Cassidy is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @meganrcassidy