A Twitter user is accusing United Airlines of lying about the whereabouts of her lost luggage in the wake of the massive delays and travel disasters this holiday season. Valerie Szybala, a disinformation researcher from Washington D.C., described how she tracked her luggage via an Apple AirTag and how United deflected blame for her luggage.
… Szybala’s luggage was allegedly lost after an international trip where she had a layover in a Southwest Airlines hub during the carrier’s epic meltdown. Her luggage arrived in D.C. the day after she returned home, but she didn’t receive her bag for nearly five full days after. Over the course of the next several days, she used her AirTag to track her bag’s whereabouts all over D.C., from an apartment complex to malls, and a McDonald’s — all while United’s help desk was telling her her luggage was safely at a distribution center.
… Szybala said she took an offer from United to hand the bag over to a delivery service instead of going to the airport to get it, which is where the saga started. United’s help center was unhelpful during all of this, repeatedly telling Szybala that her bag was in the distribution center. One representative even told her to “calm down.”
… Yesterday (Tuesday), Szybala had a breakthrough. She received a text from a courier who said he would deliver her bag to her that day. She happened to be snooping around the apartment complex where her luggage was staying for the past several days, so she told the courier to meet her there. A couple of local news crews followed her there and she got her bag. She said the courier’s explanation didn’t match up with what her bag was showing over the course of the experience and she’d “still like some answers.”
… United later said it has been in touch with Szybala and that the “baggage delivery vendor provided does not meet our standards and we are investigating what happened to lead to this service failure.”
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