[ebrogue]

I recently flew Southwest airlines from Chicago Midway to Phoenix Skyharbor Int'l airport. Now, I understand now that my actions of placing such valuables in my luggage was stupid on my part, but my dad checks his laptop all the time, and his in fact arrived safely. On the other hand, my Apple macbook laptop, GPS and jewelry did not arrive with my luggage in PHX. Either a Southwest employee in Chicago or TSA employee stole these items from my luggage and due to the complaint/customer service wait time taking now THREE WEEKS before a result or anyone in the chicago area has looked at security tapes I'm sure this thief of an employee is still stealing from passengers luggage and getting away with it. The process to actually contact someone at Southwest is ridiculous, and they are responsible for their employees, so in the long run are responsible for such theft from checked luggage. Beware when traveling through Chicago Midway via Southwest because there is a shady employee still employed.

[Jetliner]

Well, the process of contacting them is not ridiculous at all. You call the baggage service office. Or stop in. It's that simple. But, beyond that, you will not hear much of anything for several reasons. First, the items stolen are not covered by any airline. Secondly, they are now dealing with both an HR issue and a legal issue, and that's assuming it is a Southwest person. For legal reasons they can't tell you the outcome. And if it's TSA, forget ever hearing anything.

And don't count on a review of any tapes. More than likely there aren't any. The TSA and airports are concerned with keeping terrorists off the planes. That is what their cameras will be used for. Yes, I know they should be filming those handling the bags, but in most cases they don't. Again - someone stealing your laptop vs someone trying to hijack a plane. Neither is right, but which do you think they are devoting resources to stopping?

Here's the other end of this. No matter how small the airline, there is always going to be some you know what stealing from bags somewhere. When you have thousands of employees, someone is going to be the bad apple.

[cbabby]

this is the story about what's going on.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...133126458.html

pass it on people!


contact the chicago police department if this sounds like what happened to you!

we need to stop this!

[Gromit801]

That's a great article, and more power to the people for doing what needs to be done.

[jimworcs]

This illustrates the arrogance of the airline industry. They dont want to address this issue. CCTV should be installed in all baggage areas, and mployees should be subjected to random searches on leaving. This story shows what scale this is on. This is not a Southwest it is industry wide. Over 20 years ago, I remember a 60 minutes expose showing routine, widespead theft at JFK. It seems nothng will be done, yet another reason we need widespread regulation. We should have regulations which require:

1. Airlines to log all complaints of theft or misding items. This should be filed with the DOT and airport police
2. CCTV to be installed in all baggage handling areas
3. Random searches of all employees leaving work
4. Disclosure quarterly of statistics on reported thefts

That might shine some light on the scale of the problem.

[ebrogue]

Thanks CBabby. I actually wrote in for that story and you'll find a small snippet of my airline horror story in the story you posted. The Chicago police were no help, but there is a record of the stolen items with both the police here and in Phoenix (who actually took a detailed report and reviewed the tapes in the airport, unlike our hometown cops who are too busy to help).

It's sad that even after supposedly "disbanding" the theft ring at Midway, my laptop was stolen. Clearly, they aren't too concerned about the safety of their passengers.

Originally Posted by cbabby

this is the story about what's going on.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...133126458.html

pass it on people!


contact the chicago police department if this sounds like what happened to you!

we need to stop this!

[ebrogue]

Here's yet another incident of employee theft out of Midway's airport: http://archive.chicagobreakingnews.c...ith-theft.html.