A United Passenger's Lost Luggage Was Delivered To McDonald's
You may be able to handle delayed flights, limited foot space, and bad airplane meals, but arriving at your destination without your luggage is something nobody wants to experience. Many things could've led to this point; the bags could have been incorrectly tagged, placed on the wrong plane, or not transferred in time after a layover. According to Luggage Hero, 692,884 bags were handled incorrectly in the first half of 2021, which is just about 0.4%. The airline that handles your luggage the safest is Allegiant Air, while the one that takes the worst care is Envoy Air. United Airlines sits somewhere in the middle.
Just after the holidays, a United Airlines customer added to the lost luggage statistic when her bag was sent on a strange adventure. Upon her arrival to Washington, D.C. from Chicago, Illinois, Valerie Szybala's received a notification that her bag was delayed until the following day (per Independent). The bag did indeed wind up in Washington, but not in the location Szybala was hoping for.
She was told to 'calm down'
After Valerie Szybala's luggage was lost following a United Airlines flight, she tracked down its location using her AirTag (per Twitter). It led her to a residential apartment complex, where she photographed other bags sitting out back by a dumpster. When she wasn't able to find hers, she reached out to customer care and questioned them regarding her AirTag's readings. They claimed her bag was "safe at the delivery services distribution centre" and told Syzbala to "calm down." It was clear by the photos she shared that her bag was not at a distribution center.
On Sunday, she monitored her AirTag as her luggage moved to McDonald's. It stayed there momentarily before returning to the complex, and after moving again the following day, Syzbala realized that it must be in a vehicle. Per Independent, she then arrived at the complex's garage with a resident and a news crew hoping to locate the vehicle her AirTag led to. "After creeping around the building's garage with a little posse trying to get a signal, I stepped outside for service," she wrote. That's when a text came in from someone claiming they had her luggage. "The dude who [picked up the phone when I called] was around the corner, so he drove back to meet me near the building," she said. Finally, she was reunited with her bag, but she claims the incident "didn't make any sense. It still doesn't."