If only lost luggage could collect frequent flyer miles
When the phone rang, Karen Dugan, of Glastonbury, was polite, but she couldn't talk long. For days, she'd been tracking her luggage, lost in the infamous Southwest Airlines meltdown that will cost the company nearly $1 billion (though it could be more).
On this cold and crisp morning, Dugan's Apple AirTag — small Bluetooth trackers — told her that she and husband John's two large suitcases and a duffle bag were just blocks away. Karen Dugan had her phone ready. She wanted to take a photo to capture The Moment. In fact, her readers on social media demanded it.
The duffle bag was the biggest concern. Its tag wasn't as explicit as it could have been and it contained John's new running shoes, bought while they visited family out west, where they'd contracted COVID, rallied, hiked, and were well enough to gather for a Christmas meal. Minus the COVID, it was a wonderful trip, and on Dec. 26 when they left for the airport — luggage in hand — all was well.
The first leg of their trip was easy, back when most of us still believed in air travel. And then the couple arrived at Chicago Midway International. Southwest was in the process of canceling 70 percent of its flights that day, and things just got worse. Another passenger who was also heading to Connecticut noticed Karen Dugan's UConn sweatshirt, and called out that the flight to Bradley had been canceled.
They walked up the jetway into chaos with crying babies and families settling into their home — airport lounges — for the next few days. Karen Dugan saw a patchwork of humanity who shared one goal, getting out of Midway as quickly as possible.
But the portal was shrinking.
Dugan said that if Southwest was imploding, the people behind the counters — where computers had quit — were stellar. A ticket agent got the couple on the last two seats on a plane to LaGuardia Airport, not quite home but close enough for Uber. They were told not to expect their luggage to travel with them, but when they arrived in New York, Karen Dugan instinctively started toward baggage claim before she thought better of it.
The ride home was uneventful, and since they'd been told to expect their luggage in a few days, they settled in to count their blessings (they were home) and watch on television other travelers' plight.
The Dugans assumed the bags would be loaded onto the next plane — or maybe the plane after that — but AirTag began charting a far different course. From Midway, the luggage returned to Phoenix. A few times, from the map on the app, it looked as if the luggage was sitting in a parking lot, or on the tarmac, or near a large warehouse. Maybe the bags were reluctant to end their vacation?
Karen Dugan became fascinated with her suitcases' trip as they embarked on a kind of Grand Tour of the Great West. She began posting on Facebook the photos from her AirTag, and people got hooked on the saga.
“At least your luggage is having an adventure,” wrote one friend. As one day bled into another, other friends joined her in speculating. Was the luggage OK? Was anyone bullying the suitcases? One friend suggested her updates be published in paperback, or as a movie, but no one could agree on a title.
Meanwhile, the bags methodically made their way through New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, and then on to Joplin, Mo., my old stomping grounds, but from the map, the bags were not, in fact, at the region's airport. They were a good few miles southwest of there, most likely on I-44 on a truck that appeared to make frequent stops. Ping in Wadsworth, Ohio. Ping in little Nescopeck, Penn.
And then, last Tuesday, Karen Dugan posted on Facebook an AirTag photo that showed the bags within a mile of her house. The world waited. A full hour later, a nice delivery man posed for a photo after he set the bags by her door (he said Karen Dugan could take his photo but let's give the man his privacy; he has no idea the tale in which he plays a part).
Karen Dugan worried that their dirty clothing might be ripe when she finally opened the luggage, so she put that off as long as possible, but a subsequent Facebook video showed her tossing clothing into a laundry basket.
“Now if you'll excuse me,” she wrote, “I have some laundry to do.”
It was, since it ended well, a fun trip. One neighbor said she regretted not organizing a welcome-home band for the suitcases' arrival.
That's understandable. Coming to the end of a great story is difficult. One friend wrote that when the luggage arrived, he'd felt the same sense of loss when the long-running television show “M*A*S*H*” ended. One suggested the Dugans tote their bags around Glastonbury for a few days and then post it so their supporters could ease into the end of the story. They probably won't, but it's a decent idea.
Susan Campbell is the author of “Frog Hollow: Stories From an American Neighborhood,” “Tempest Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker,” and “Dating Jesus: Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl.” Find more at susancampbell.substack.com.