Delta left all our bags out in thunderstorms!
 

Whenever I fly Delta there is a problem. My flight was delayed several times because of rain. I understand weather delays, but apparently while we were waiting for the weather to clear, our bags were left out in the rain the whole time. All my bags were completely soaked through! You have no idea how heavy my bags were. I was on my way to Fort Jackson, SC for training. By the time I got there after midnight, I then had to find a 24 hour laundromat to dry my uniform to wear by 6am the next morning. The next day, I had to wear wet boots all day long, and this wasn't even a field environment! Totally unacceptable. Delta was completly unapologetic for this. At a minimum, I want an apology and at least a voucher for my pain, inconvienince and suffering!

The ramp agents needs to immediately leave the tarmac due to lightning dangers. The bags are secondary to their safety.

Agreed with Rudy. If there is a thunderstorm going on, I wouldn't touch a metal luggage cart for anything.

You're in the military for crying out loud. Deal with it. You could be in Iraq.

Source: Me. 8 year military vet who had to deal with worst things than wet boot.

Thanks for the info Rudy. Understand safety. And being in the military doesn't mean I have to deal with crappy customer service, Gromit. Thank you, I've already been to Iraq. And when there is a problem, those professional Soldiers apologize for it and try to make it right.

I'm thinking that if the airlines kept their passengers informed there wouldn't be so much anger directed their way. Maybe if there had been an annoucement saying that the flight was delayed and that due to the danger of the lightening, bags have been left on the tarmac and would probably be wet as a result. If they had done that, I wouldn't be writing this now. I would have understood along with hundereds of other people. Is that too much to ask?

Who said there was a danger of lightening? Rudy just made that up as an excuse to slag off another customer in the time honoured way of airline personnel in the US. Every time it rains, there is not a danger of lightening. This made up excuse is typical of airline employees..they do it automatically regardless of the facts. Typical examples of lying knee jerk responses "the delay was due to the weather"; "someone will be available to help you at the gate"; "the gate are aware you are connecting, and your flight will be held"; "we paged you"; "we emailed the changes to you"; etc, etc, etc...

Who said there wasn't a danger of lightning? I'm just going by what I experienced. I'd like to see you stay out on a tarmac during a rain storm....BTW "lightening" refers to the fading of a color.

krissy, in all probability, (jim, I'm not saying I know for a fact, because I wasn't there) it was due to lightning in the area. It is highly unlikely that everyone would go inside and leave the gate area for any other reason. Rudy is right in that if there is lightning in the AREA, that is to mean within 10 MILES of ANY PART of the AIRFIELD, (in my experience), employees are asked to drop everything and get inside ASAP. Now, with that said, I know from personal experience working in such conditions that it wouldn't have been very hard, or taken more than an extra 2 seconds to close the curtains on the bag cart to hopefully keep your bags dry. When I was in similar situations, I closed all the curtains I could find on my way to the door. I wouldn't want my stuff to get wet either, and understandably so. I'm guessing, based on my past experience, that the reason your bags were wet was because it was still pouring rain while they loaded the bags. IF there was lightning in the area and the ramp agents were asked to go inside for safety reasons, they don't necessarily wait until it stops raining to go back out. They wait until the lightning has stopped or moved further away. So, if it was still raining while they loaded the bags on the flight, they are going to get wet, there's nothing they can do about it short of holding an umbrella over every bag on it's way from the cart to the airplane. As far as making an announcement in the gate area, it's the same idea as closing the curtains, it could have, and should have been done. But the simple fact is that when the weather is that bad, the gate agent is probably VERY busy with other things like re-booking, missing connections, stand-bys, etc and either didn't have the time or forgot in the chaos. Sorry you had to wear wet boots, I know that sucks! Hooah!

Side note - I've seen more than one guy actually struck by lightning because they didn't pay attention to the warnings and get inside fast enough, fortunately they both lived with minor injuries.

Just happened about two weeks ago in Orlando:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/flor...y/1159166.html

Jim. In the eastern US during the Summer months rain is almost always accompanied by lightning. Especialy a drenching rain that would soak luggage in sucha short period of time.

Someone told me the formula they use when deciding to shut down operations on the ramp and I believe justme is correct. If lightning is detected within a a 10 mile radius everything is shut down and doesn't resume until 30 minutes after the last lightning strike within that 10 mile radius. Hence why passengers usually complain "why can't we board yet" when a particularly fast storm moves through. The rain may have ceased and the sunlight may be breaking through the clouds but if it's still within that 30 minute safety margin they will not be cleared to resume operations.

My point was, there was nothing in the post to suggest there was lightening and no-one has any evidence there was lightening. (I lived on the Eastern seaboard of the US for 10 years btw). My point was, airline employees seem to have a knee jerk reaction to provide an explanation whether the facts support it or not. I have been given different explanations for the same event many times... it is almost pavlovian.

Perhaps if the OP had bothered to post where she was flying from and the date we could probably verify that detail rather quickly. Two posts since her first and she has avoided doing just that and hasn't denied there were T-storms. Even without further details I think we have our answer.

Um, before you went on that tirade, did you read the title of the thread?

"Delta left all our bags out in thunderstorms!"

It's not physically possible to have thunder if you don't have lightning, so to answer you question it was the OP who effectively said it.

With that said, to rubybjr and Gromit801 - the first strikes are not going to be right overhead. We all understand that. When the ramp closes for lightning, there is time to pull the curtains closed as you leave. That comes from more than 8 years on the ramp. I also have spent a few years in the baggage service office. From both I can tell you that it is understandable that the bag will get a bit wet. In fact, just from loading in a storm the fabric can get soaked. However, there is no reason that the bag should have been left out long enough that the contents got water logged. That was careless handling one someone's part.

You need to tell us what you mean by storm here. A heavy rain fall is a storm, but may not have lightning. So in that case, yes, I've spent lots of times in rain storms. I worked in central Florida. Those are daily summer events. I've even worked in the remnants of hurricanes, or the edges, on more than one occasion. As long as there is no lightning in the area, we work.

And if you want to get technical, normally when you have a bad storm, the lightning will occur during the beginning of the storm, but the rain can last much longer. It lightnings due to the first minutes or hour of water falling equalizing the static between the atmosphere and the ground. That's why during a hurricane it will lightning at first on the leading edge, but as the storm is passing over, you get tons of wind and rain, but no lightning. By that point the static has equaled out.

I'm with you! I've spent countless hours loading bags in the rain, snow, sleet, hail, thunderstorms, heat, cold, and anything other weather phenomenon you can think of! I do have to disagree on some level that it was "careless handling." It very well could have been, but not necessarily so. As you said, just moving the bags from the cart to the airplane can get them really soaked. I'm sure with your experience that you know that puddles of water can form inside the carts, even if the curtains are closed. With the bag in discussion being a cloth sided military duffle, we all know it would have acted just like a sponge, soaking up every ounce of water it came in contact with.

Posted this in another thread related to weather and lightning but thought it would be good here too.

Read here for more interesting facts.

At Orlando airport, I have heard them make the announcement that flight delayed because lightning is preventing ground crew from working, even though it was barely raining.

If the storm was bad enough, or if it was an all-day rainy, crappy kind of irop day, then it is possible the bags were offloaded in the rain, also. I don't know if the OP connected, or if it was a direct check-in, but if he or she did connect, it's very possible the drivers were bogged down and late to pick up the bags from the arriving flight. The ramp will try to put bags under the wing, to protect them at least a bit, but most times there are puddles on the ground that everything just sits in. And what makes it even worse is that because it is an irop and most stuff is running late, the crews HAVE to offload the bags as fast as they can, so they can turn the flight back out ASAP. It'd be nice if they could keep the bags in the bins til the drivers showed up to help offload, but most times they "dump" the flight and start loading for the outbound. It sucks, but it's still what is done.

I've never had that happen. Most of our carts were made where the bottom of the cart was two parallel sheets of metal in kind of a v shape in the middle (the low point running from front to back) and with about a 1/4 inch gap between them so that water can't stay. We had some back in the day where the metal was welded together, but there were holes drilled along the middle. If you airline does not have some drainage, then the GSE guys need to put them there for this very reason.

Also, when I'm talking about careless handling, I'm talking about the bag getting this wet, to the point it soaked the bag through and through. The side of the bag being wet (even soaked) is not careless handling because, as you have said, sometimes the bags get loaded and unloaded in the rain.

To Jetliner:
 

I guess we didn't work for the same airline based on the differences in the carts. ;) I know what you mean about the V shape of the shelves, the carts I used had the same shape shelves but did not have drain holes and as far as I know, (from friends who are still employees), still don't. I'll tell them to get with the GSE department and suggest it. I can definitely see the benefit of the drain holes. What oh my wrote could also definitely be a factor.

Been there, done it. It's misfortuneate that bags have to sit out in the rain, but on days like that, "stuff" ;) happens.

A trip to Cabellas?
 

I'll assume the reason the military hasn't issued a waterproof duffel is because the current cloth/canvass issue is lighter. If someone is chasing you, or vice versa, I can appreciate the need for quick, unimpeded movement.

Springing for the big bucks, and making a trip (or on-line order) to Cabellas will probably yield a soft sided duffel, or other bag, built to hold-up to downpours if that's what is needed.

Watertight duffel
 

Comes in four sizes. Highest price is $109.88 for something measuring 42 X 17 X 17 inches. Don't know if that would require any special fees to the airline because of its size. The description claims it can hold up to a "complete submersion." I'll take them at their word on that last one.

See...

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/te...set=ISO-8859-1

Other option: UPS or Fedex