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Cops Nab Phoenix Airport Baggage Thief; Is Your Missing Luggage In His House?
There are baggage thieves, like these petty fellows, and then there are compulsive baggage thieves, like the couple who were just caught after having stolen 1,000+ checked bags from the carousels at Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport.
Keith King and Stacy Legg-King lived in squalor amongst towers of stolen luggage strewn about their suburban home, the ill-gotten goods pinched by Keith straight from the baggage claims of arriving flights. He was spotted three weeks ago when an airport officer noticed King parking at the airport, taking a bag from the carousel, and then putting it in his car and leaving. After this incident, the police put surveillance on him and caught him in the act again this past Monday. And that's when the operation blew wide open...
Tags: V Australia / Virgin / Travel Gear / Luggage / Baggage / Fashion Travel / → All Tags
The Search For Ideal Luggage Continues: V Australia's 'Perfect Bag'
It's one of the oldest moneymaking games in the book: convince tourists that the bags they're traveling with aren't safe enough, or convenient enough, or stylish enough, and sell them a more jaunt-friendly bag. Very very soon however, all this could be put to rest by the release of the fruit of the labors of a fashion designer-airline combination.
Whether you're of the type that prefers the sixteen zippered pockets and multitude of snaps, or the type that wants only a simplistic tote, V Australia is asking you to help them design "the perfect bag for the perfect trip."
Tags: Airline News / Virgin America / Airports / Baggage / Carry-On Luggage / → All Tags
Virgin America Tests Allowing Baggage-Free Passengers To Board First
Ever the innovators, Virgin America is testing a new boarding scheme for speed and efficiency. They've ordered agents at targeted airports to let people without bags board the airplane first, the idea being to seat them and then let everyone else slow down the line while fighting for overhead space. It's the kind of thing that, if you run it through your mind, seems just crazy enough to work. So naturally everyone, us included, is trying to come up with reasons why the new policy is doomed to failure.
Travel blogger Cranky Flier is worried that overly ambitious, roll-a-board toting business consultants will try to sneak onto the plane along with legitimately carryon-free travelers. That would put gate agents in the awkward situation of either having to contradict a customer or letting them cheat. It's not that these passengers would be jumping the line in the strict sense—they have more of an incentive to do that in the status quo, where they're not assured that the people ahead of them will leave overhead space—as much as a "what do you mean my 'backpack' counts as a carryon?" kind of scenario.
Tags: Crime / JFK / Baggage / Lost Luggage / → All Tags
Two Airport Workers Caught In Baggage Theft Sting At JFK
Reason number 1,679 to avoid checking baggage: yesterday, cops nabbed two JFK airport workers, one a TSA agent, who had been going through passengers' baggage and blatantly stealing items of value.
It seems that the airport and Delta Airlines had noticed an unexplainable amount of missing items from luggage over the past year, and so set up a sting operation to test for sticky fingers among ground crew. The police checked a bag, filled with a laptop, two cell phones and an iPod, onto a flight from JFK to Miami and easily caught the pair of thieves pilfering the goods before the luggage had even boarded the plane.
To confuse matters for the unlucky passenger claiming the bag at its destination, the pair then tore off the bag tag. If convicted, each man faces up to 4 years in prison, so let's hope there's some more condeming evidence back at their homes to keep them out of our baggage claim forever.
Related Stories:
· Sting nabs stickey-fingered JFK airport workers going through luggage [NY Daily News]
· Airport employees caught in theft sting [ABCNews]
· You Know That Thing You’re Afraid Happens to Your Luggage After You Check It? [Daily Intel]
· Travel Crime Coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: tttallis]
Tags: Baggage / Lost Luggage / Shopping / Bizarre Travel / → All Tags
Where Unclaimed Baggage Goes to Die (And Live Again)
Ever lose your luggage on a flight and wonder what happens to bags that never get reunited with their woeful owners?
Well, a good deal of it ends up in Scottsboro, Alabama at a massive thrift store called the Unclaimed Baggage Center. UBC buys unclaimed luggage from airlines in bulk, to the tune of 7,000 new items a day (that's a lot of lost bags!) Then everything is sold to the public out of their Alabama warehouse, and we do mean everything. Clothes, cameras, iPods, exotic souvenirs, prescription eyeglasses, and of course the bags themselves.
They've also got a museum where they put aside the stuff found in lost bags that's just too good to sell—for example, a life-size version of the creepy Hoggle puppet from the movie Labyrinth and a slew of 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts. Seems like those could have been reunited with their rightful owners, but oh well, finders keepers.
Related Stories:
· Unclaimed Baggage Center [Official Site]
· US Air Eats Luggage For Breakfast [Jaunted]
· Shopping coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: J-Rad]
Tags: Crouch of Shame / Baggage / American Airlines / Shira Lazar / → All Tags
Travel Woos: Crouch of Shame at American, Before SXSW
Yes, we know it is woes, so don't bother correcting us, but if you take the time to watch the entire video you just might get the joke. If you do decide to watch the video you will see Jaunted Embed Shira Lazar take you through the grueling, painstaking process of the airline crouch of shame, brought on by the 50lb baggage restrictions.
Luckily, it looks like Shira has the process down, she even has a couple tips for our overpacking readers -- jeans and shoes weigh the most, so layer up. Shira was on her way from LAX to AUS for SXSW via AA -- enough acronyms for you?
Related Stories:
· Jaunted Embed Shira Lazar [Jaunted]
· Baggage Scale Crouch of Shame [Jaunted]
Tags: Ryanair / LCCs / Carry-On Luggage / Baggage Fees / Baggage / → All Tags
Ryanair Will Fine You £30 If You Have Too Many Carry-Ons
Checking in luggage, checking in at the airport, choosing the seat you want… we already knew Ryanair was the airline that’ll sting you for as much as it can. But just when Europe was getting used to its crazy rules, it’s gone one further.
Ryanair is now only allowing passengers one item of hand luggage on its planes, whether that’s a suitcase or a teeny purse. Ordinarily, this would be no problem. We would just get a big bag, stuff our camera/laptop/handbag inside it to go through check-in and decant it all the other side of security. Besides, the cabin crew would be too busy posing in their scanties to even notice.
But not anymore. Anyone who arrives at the gate with more than one piece of hand luggage will be stung for a flat £30 ($42) and then will have the offending bag relegated to the hold. The crackdown comes after one passenger apparently arrived at the gate with five whole pieces of hand luggage.
Maybe now it's about time to look into travelling on a slightly more reasonable airline.
Got your own carry-on hell story? Let us know.
Related Stories:
· Is Ryanair The World's Crassest Airline? [Jaunted]
· Baggage stories [Jaunted]
· News: Ryanair introduces £30 excess hand luggage charge [Press Release]
[Photo of plane: elward-photography]
Tags: Airport Hell / Baggage / Luggage / Airline Fees / → All Tags
Vlogging Superstar Falls Victim To Baggage Scale Crouch Of Shame
We like former Defamer Molly McAleer lots, so we were horrified to hear that our internet crush missed a recent flight because of one passenger's baggage scale crouch of shame. Molls reports:
I finally arrived in Boston at 11-something pm after missing my morning flight because 10 extra minutes of sleep, 15 minutes of late cab drivers and 20 minutes of an inconsiderate Persian woman unpacking and repacking her suitcases in front of me at the check-in point when she learned that there was a baggage fee. Apparently the bitch lives under a rock cause I showed up with 1 bag and about 200 bucks in cash prepared for the worst.
We'd never accuse any of our savvy readers of not knowing about checked bag charges, but the holidays are nothing if not an opportunity for amateurs to gunk up the works. So spread the word to your less-traveled friends before they fly home for Christmas: Carry on only, or be ready to pay up.
Related Stories:
· This Is the Place I Fly To So I Can Eat Sandwiches [Molls She Wrote]
· What Airline Employees Really Think of Your Luggage [Jaunted]
· What's To Be Done About The Baggage Scale Crouch Of Shame? [Jaunted]
Tags: Open Threads / Baggage / Luggage / Awful Trends / → All Tags
What's To Be Done About The Baggage Scale Crouch Of Shame?
Back in the days before pricey luggage fees and seemingly weekly airline bankruptcies, carriers didn't ever seem to charge for overweight bags. But we've recently heard about shady baggage scales from Tucson to St. Lucia, a disturbingly awful trend that can cost you at least $50 for every "overweight" suitcase you check.
Of course, the problem is that most hotel rooms don't come with scales--and even if they did, would you really be geeky enough to balance your Samsonite on there before heading to the airport?
In other words, the airlines have us by the rucksacks: If you're gonna check a bag, you have to trust the scale at check in. Overweight bags have led us to perform the dreaded crouch of shame more than once, digging through our dirty underwear in front of everyone, stuffing extras into our carry-on to lighten our checked load. But what's to be done about the hidden baggage scale scourge?
Do you have any tricks to determine which scales are bogus? Is one airline more guilty of shady scales than the others? And have you ever had to do your own crouch of shame? Let's commiserate in the comments.
Related Stories:
· More Airport Scales We Can't Trust [Jaunted]
· Baggage Scale Crisis Continues in Caribbean [Jaunted]
· Jaunted Open Threads [Jaunted]
[Photo: tttallis]
Tags: HOWTO / Packing Tips / Airline Fees / Baggage / Luggage / Skiing / → All Tags
How To Fly With Your Skis
Everyone, it seems, is hauling the skis out of the closet and trying to figure out how to get them to the mountain without paying a checked baggage charge. But unless you're paying for business or first class seats--which usually cover the cost of your bags--you're probably going to end up forking over some cash. But at least you have some options of who you'll be forking to:
Tags: Airport Hell / Baggage / Luggage / Funny / → All Tags
What Airline Employees Really Think Of Your Luggage
If you're doing any dead zone travel this week or next, don't think that just because the airport is empty everyone's happy to see you. Nope, a tourist is a tourist is a tourist--at least according to humor site Holy Taco, which has put together a handy compendium on what people are thinking when you travel.
While the inner monologues of taxi drivers and baggage handlers giving your suitcase the Rex Grossman treatment are funny enough, we got the biggest laugh out of what every airline check-in agent must think at least a dozen times an hour:
Is that the only baggage you’ll be checking? Let me tell you about how we’re charging for that now, so that you can act really shocked and outraged, even though there’s not one thing I can do about it, and you already knew about this months ago because every news outlet in the entire world has reported on it.
Our tip? Don't be that guy. Brush up on the rules before hitting the airport, either at your airline's official website or on FareCompare's airline fee chart. And if you want to skip the judgy airline employee altogether, check in online before leaving home. You can even do that if you plan to check bags; just drop them off at the designated counter when you get to the airport and you're on your way.
Related Stories:
· What People Are Thinking When You Travel [Holy Taco]
· Do You Dare Dead Zone Travel? [Jaunted]
[Photo: juicyrai]
Tags: Awful Trends / Airport Hell / Luggage / Baggage / UVF / American Airlines / → All Tags
Baggage Scale Crisis Continues In Caribbean
After Tucson and New York, we were hoping to be done with faulty luggage scales at airports. But the scourge is now menacing the Caribbean, at least according to one tipster who hit us up on the complaint line:
My honeymoon cost me $50 more than expected due to what I'm sure were faulty scales at the American Airlines counter in St. Lucia's Hewanorra International. Somehow between arriving in St. Lucia and leaving, our luggage gained 15 pounds. I actually removed some items from our luggage that weren't needed anymore, and we didn't buy much of anything to bring home.
I would say we probably added five pounds of souveniers and removed the same in items that were not returning with us, such as some toiletries we came with that were full on arrival but almost empty on leaving. If my baggage weighed five pounds more, I'd be fine with it, but 15 pounds more is another story--especially when that extra "weight" requires me to shell out money!
Obviously we haven't checked all of American's scales in the Caribbean, but given the carrier's track record, it seems possible there are some shenanigans afoot. This being the third instance of faulty scales we've heard about in less than a month, this is now officially an awful trend.
Related Stories:
· New York Airport Scales Now Accurate, No Thanks To American [Jaunted]
· Airport Hell coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Noël Zia Lee]
