Imagine that you’re standing in the baggage claim area of an airport, tired and even a little jet-lagged after a flight, waiting for the one thing standing between you and the (hopefully) comfortable bed waiting at a hotel: your suitcase.
We’ve all been there, watching the slow-moving conveyor belt while feeling trepidatious at best, agitated at worst. What if the luggage never appears? What if it never even made it onto the plane? Or, heaven forbid, what if it fell out of the plane in-flight?
But almost every time, the suitcase comes around the corner in one piece.
Almost.
For one college student, her luggage never appeared. Instead, she tracked it down to a place she least expected — an airport employee’s home.
How did the luggage go missing?
Paola Garcia always carried her “pink hard-shell suitcase onboard with her,” according to Florida’s Local 10 News. But when she was forced to check her bag on the Spirit Airlines flight, she had to hope for the best. When she landed at at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, she waited at baggage claim for over two hours.
Her suitcase never came through.
“In my mind, I’m thinking I need my computer because I go to the university, I need my computer no matter what,” Garcia told Local 10 News. Her computer was one of many valuables in her missing suitcase.
According to CNN, Spirit Airlines told Garcia that her suitcase was sent to her home. But the luggage never arrived.
Because her luggage contained an Apple MacBook, Apple iPad and Apple Watch, she decided to ping them in order to track them down. The address belonged to someone in Fort Lauderdale.
Local 10 News’ Jeff Weinsier asked Garcia about what she discovered. Garcia told him she pinged her belongings at an address 15 minutes away from the airport.
Weinsier asked whether she decided to visit the house.
“Yes,” Garcia replied, “because I said how can Spirit deliver my suitcase there. Yes, because I needed my computer. I have test that day.”
According to Local 10 News, as soon as she arrived, she saw suitcases everywhere and called the police.
“The first thing the police told me was like, ‘What are you doing here? This is so dangerous for you to be here,’” Garcia told Weinsier.
The police traced the address to Junior Bazile, per People, “who worked for a company that operates retail stores at the airport, and confirmed he was working the day of the theft.” He was arrested on March 8 and charged with grand theft.
How can you protect your luggage?
A Spirit Airlines representative told People that “regarding this specific case: even though we are not aware of any evidence that any Spirit employee was involved, we issued a reimbursement check to the Guest as a courtesy on May 20, 2024.”
While cases such as these are rare, there are ways to protect your luggage. Travel + Leisure provided a list of some of the best tracking devices to keep on your suitcase.
Keeping in close contact with your airline, as well as keeping your valuables in a carry-on bag, may also be effective ways to protect personal items.