TAMPA, Fla — The day after Christmas saw chaos at airports across the country—including at Tampa International Airport.
According to airport officials, more than 18 percent of their flights were canceled and nearly 160 have been delayed.
But, there’s another problem for some flying Southwest Airlines.
Thousands of bags were left sitting at baggage claim—and Southwest Airlines said they're from canceled flights.
It's a situation that left passengers sifting through the mess, hoping to find their belongings.
“I’m down in the boneyard looking for my luggage," said Robert Benson, “I knew it was from all the flights that’s been canceled.”
“Our luggage is lost. They’re not exactly sure where it was. We flew in [at] about 3:30 a.m. We got in line at 4 a.m., and they told us that our bags were stuck in D.C.," said Alana Kroshke, “We’re big travelers. We travel all over the world. It’s happened before. There’s nothing you can do about it. We go to Walmart, we buy a few things, and you’re on your way.”
Over and over again at TPA, we found people choosing to see the silver lining in the middle of the mess.
People like Carlos Davis, whose family is stuck in Florida after their flight back home to Arizona was canceled.
"So now we have an extended week here in Tampa, Florida."
He said they'll be staying with a family friend who's been asking them to visit.
"We called her up we said, 'Here we are! This is what you asked for!'" Davis said, laughing.
Newlywed Matthew Christopher, from Denver, said his holiday started off nice.
"The best is obviously going back to see your friends and your family doing the festive things," he said.
But it ended in a bit of a nightmare.
"It's my wife's birthday and our first honeymoon as a married couple, and we don't have our bags."
Then we met Sonny Ferraiuolo from New Port Richey, who drove back down to the Tampa Bay area after a connecting flight in Louisiana was canceled.
"Got here 5 o'clock yesterday morning, back home," he said.
A second canceled flight on Monday means he's officially missed a holiday gathering with all of the family.
Ferraiuolo said he's now waiting to grab his bags and hit the road again so he doesn't miss another important date out west.
"My daughter's getting married [on] New Year's Eve. So the only way I'm going to be guaranteed to make it there? Gonna go get my car, get my bags, and I'm going to drive to Phoenix," he said.
Southwest Airlines released a statement on its website, saying in part:
With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our Customers and Employees in a significant way that is unacceptable.
And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning.
We’re working with Safety at the forefront to urgently address wide-scale disruption by rebalancing the airline and repositioning Crews and our fleet ultimately to best serve all who plan to travel with us.
We were fully staffed and prepared for the approaching holiday weekend when the severe weather swept across the continent, where Southwest is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S. This forced daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and magnitude that still has the tools our teams use to recover the airline operating at capacity...
To read the full statement, click here.
Southwest said it will compensate for “reasonable requests,” which may include meals, hotel and alternate transportation if you’re impacted by a flight cancellation or significant delay between Dec. 24 through Jan. 2. The airline asks you to email them receipts for consideration at this link.
