I’d say that Kim and I check a bag 95% of the time.
For international trips we aren’t bringing along backpacks small enough to bring onboard, especially not when also packing clothes, diapers and other things needed for a toddler. We’ve also avoided paying checked-bag fees since most of our domestic flights in the past few years have been with Southwest, an airline that allows you to check bags for free. Otherwise, for our recent trip to Orlando we flew AA. Due to having Gold status I was allowed to also check bags for free.
We took one trip in 2014 where we flew domestic and brought only carry-ons. We did so when we went to Las Vegas in September for the BoardingArea Conference. I found it annoying to have the extra bag to pull around and it was only do-able since Lucas didn’t come along meaning no stroller and car seat to worry about, let alone a little person!
When thinking about checked bags, I used to worry about bags being lost or delayed. Years back, on my first two trips to Europe my luggage didn’t make it to the destination. It was quite annoying wandering around Barcelona feeling filthy and walking up the Eiffel Tower in flip-flops. The bags did arrive later in the day but it was definitely an inconvenience.
Yesterday, American Airlines had an issue with the conveyor belt system in Miami, failing to load thousands of bags onto flights. The system’s problems didn’t allow bags to be moved for hours.
According to Mashable, “Hundreds of passengers arrived at their destination, only to find empty carousels in baggage claim“.
The worst part of this problem was that American failed to notify passengers of the issue which took place.
Many passengers waited for hours to find out what was going on and took to social media to share the problems and failure of AA in this situation.
Here are a couple of Tweets from Mashable:
Another passenger said that they have been waiting in Chicago for their bags spending money and freezing due to the delay.
The big question I have is: Did American at least offer some sort of compensation to these inconvenienced passengers?
There is no mention of it in Mashable’s article so I’d assume that the airline did not.
Here is the link to AA’s Delayed Baggage info.
Find out more about this massive AA baggage delay from Mashable here.
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