‘In the wilderness’: The hunt for lost luggage heats up after Southwest meltdown

Susan Keeffe never left the Oakland airport when her flight to visit family in Baltimore was canceled in the ongoing chaos of Southwest Airlines’ Christmas meltdown. But her checked bag took off and hopscotched around the country for days, one of the untold number of suitcases separated from travelers this week.

“We tracked the bag to Las Vegas, and the next thing it shows up in Albuquerque, and then it was in the wilderness somewhere in the mountains. I thought it was on a puddle jumper or on a truck or something,” said Keeffe, 78, who followed her luggage’s adventure thanks to an Apple AirTag transponder she stashed in the bag. “This suitcase has been on a nice tour of the Southwest.”

With cancellations of thousands of flights continuing Wednesday and into Thursday, many passengers who are missing their family members are also missing their luggage as Southwest’s epic snafu has sent bags around the country. The airline said it had no estimate for the number of bags that have been separated from their owners, but scenes of luggage in limbo at airports across the country filled social media along with tales of woe from passengers.

It’s a problem that likely was exacerbated by one of the key perks of flying Southwest — the airline’s generous baggage allowance. Every customer, even with cheap seats, is afforded two free checked bags with their ticket. Now many of those bags and children’s car seats and golf clubs and even wheelchairs are strewn across the country. Some customers are relying on geolocators to track down their belongings.

Fortunately for Keeffe, all of her valuables and medicines were stored in a carry-on. But other travelers, such as Sumnima Devkota, are missing vital possessions.

Devkota, an exchange student from Nepal, stored high school transcripts in her luggage. The transcripts are difficult to obtain and hard to send to the United States. On Wednesday, Devokta, 20, was at the Oakland airport for the fourth time attempting to find her bag after Southwest said it had arrived but they could not locate it.

“It was supposed to be here on Saturday,” said Devkota, who resorted to buying new clothes. Her entire travel process has been excruciating. She slept in the Denver airport, spent hours in line and on hold and eventually booked a $750 flight with another airline. “I’m extremely frustrated. I am never going to fly on Southwest ever again.”

Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, said on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that “meltdown” was “the only word I can think of to describe what’s happening at Southwest Airlines.”

“We are past the point where they could say that this is a weather-driven issue,” Buttigieg said. “What this indicates is a system failure, and they need to make sure that these stranded passengers get to where they need to go and that they are provided adequate compensation.”

Southwest has acknowledged the baggage disruptions. “We recognize that many of our Customers are currently separated from their belongings, and we’re working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible,” the airline said on its website. The airline provided a form for customers to expedite their luggage return.

Along with missing luggage, the travel chaos has forced passengers to rebook costly replacement flights along with hotel stays, rental cars and other expenses. In a statement, Southwest said it will honor “reasonable requests for reimbursement for meals, hotel, and alternate transportation.” It is not immediately clear what expenses Southwest will deem reasonable as pressure mounts from the federal government to hold the airline accountable.

Leaders of Southwest’s labor unions have warned for years that the airline’s crew-scheduling system, which dates to the 1990s, is inadequate, and the CEO acknowledged this week that the technology needs to be upgraded.

The other large U.S. airlines use “hub and spoke” networks in which flights radiate out from a few major or hub airports. That helps limit the reach of disruptions caused by bad weather in part of the country.

Southwest, however, has a “point to point” network in which planes crisscross the country during the day. This can increase the utilization and efficiency of each plane, but problems in one place can ripple across the country and leave crews trapped out of position.