CONWAY, S.C. (WPDE) — Are you traveling by plane this holiday season? You may want to be careful when checking a bag.
Last year, Americans flying domestically reported more than 2.8 million pieces of checked luggage as lost, damaged, stolen, or delayed.
About two weeks ago Peggy Sorgio-Hedus and her husband flew from Myrtle Beach to Rome to take a Mediterranean cruise for her 70th birthday, but their luggage never made it.
She said, “We did everything texting, chatting online, email, phone calls. There was nothing we didn’t do, and we got no responses back.”
After four days of getting no response from the airline and spending $750 on clothes and toiletries, the couple used Apple AirTags attached to their luggage and tracked their bags.
They saw the bags were in Malta and thankfully Malta was a port stop on their cruise.
“It wasn’t our responsibility to have air tags to check every time our luggage moved somewhere, and then our responsibility to get a taxi and go pick it up,” said Peggy Sorgio-Hedus.
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According to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, last year American Airlines customers reported around 800,200 bags mishandled out of 105 million items enplaned.
The US Department of Transportation website said airlines are required to compensate passengers if bags are damaged, delayed, or lost.
While Sorgio-Hedus did get her luggage back eventually, she has been home for almost a week now and said she still hasn’t heard from American Airlines about compensation.
ABC 15 asked American Airlines for a statement regarding the situation, but the airline has not yet responded.
The airline’s website has a “Delayed and Damaged” tab where you can file your lost bag, and liability for lost, damaged, or delayed bags is limited to $3,800.