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Damaged luggage

D10ndr4
Explorer C

The saga continues from our trip from hell with SOUTHWEST AIRLINES...

 

My husband opened his brand new (only been used on one one-way flight) $1000 Rimowa suitcase while on vacation.  He placed his swim suit on to swim in the pool with our 1 year old son, on his first trip to Florida ever.  When he put his swim suit on, he was shocked to find that it was already wet.  Perplexed as to how the suit was already wet, he gave it a sniff to find out it was covered in urine. He pulled out half of his clothes to find that they were all covered in urine as well.  He photographed the urine saturated clothes, but I wish the photos were scratch and sniff because the smell was repulsive.  We called southwest and have spoken to multiple people to include claim emails; however, we still have not been able to rectify the situation.  We were given the complete run around, from customer service, to airport baggage claim personnel, back to customers service where we were told there was no one to solve our issues and to call back tomorrow.  By the way, the clothes have been washed twice and still reek of urine... the worst part is, we have no idea who or what the urine is from, which makes it that much more disgusting.

 

Aside from the items that were damaged, was the fact that my husband unknowingly put the swim suit on, when he realized they were wet prior. When he realized what the smell was, we quickly came to the realization that this was someone, or something else’s urine... a completely and utterly disgusting fact.  The fear that our one year old could have touched it and gotten violently ill or my husband for that matter, is absolutely terrifying. 

 

How frustrating to have your clothes soaked in piss?  Even more frustrating to deal with a company that continues to redirect you to someone else that can’t solve the issue.  Very unfortunate considering all we did fly was southwest and we are also chase bank southwest credit card holders.  Oh, things are about to be COMPLETELY different.   

5 REPLIES 5

Re: Damaged luggage

dfwskier
Aviator A

Morning.

 

You described an awful and disgusting situation. Sorry that it appened to you.

 

That being said 

You do realize the culprit may not work for Southwest? TSA has access to your items, and most times  

airport empoyees do too. Bags move thru the innards of airports using airport employees.  So any one of several groups of people could have done this. So, no one knows who abused your belongings.

 

Hope you have success in cleaning the clothing as well as the suitcase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re: Damaged luggage

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

Was the luggage carried by any other groups to your hotel? That might also be a place to inquire. 

 

Such a bizzare thing to have happen to your luggage. It is hard to figure out where along the way this would even have had time to occur. From the volume you are describing it might even be "stored" by whoever did it and poured in there?

 

What were the origin and destination airports?

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Damaged luggage

LindseyD
Retired Community Manager

Hi @D10ndr4,

 

We'd really love an opportunity to address this situation for you. The Community is a peer-to-peer discussion forum, so we aren't equipped here to handle one-on-one Customer Service issues. Please reach out to our Customer Relations Department at 1-855-234-4654.

 

Re: Damaged luggage

D10ndr4
Explorer C

Hi Lindsey,

 

i appreciate you reaching out, but if you saw in my post, we did call the customer relations department, who told us to call the baggage claim department at the airport we flew into, who then told us to call customer relations... aka NO ONE was actually willing to admit that an issue had occurred and no one was willing to take responsibility for the disgusting and repulsive damage that was done. 

 

I am well aware that this is a peer to peer forum... we want people, everyone in fact, to know what our experience was and that southwest gave us the complete run around and has not rectified the situation in the least. 

 

It it is absolutely disturbing, disgusting and a major health risk what happened to us, and the public deserves to know. 

Re: Damaged luggage

dfwskier
Aviator A

@D10ndr4 wrote:

Hi Lindsey,

 

i appreciate you reaching out, but if you saw in my post, we did call the customer relations department, who told us to call the baggage claim department at the airport we flew into, who then told us to call customer relations... aka NO ONE was actually willing to admit that an issue had occurred and no one was willing to take responsibility for the disgusting and repulsive damage that was done. 

 

I am well aware that this is a peer to peer forum... we want people, everyone in fact, to know what our experience was and that southwest gave us the complete run around and has not rectified the situation in the least. 

 

It it is absolutely disturbing, disgusting and a major health risk what happened to us, and the public deserves to know. 


I'm disappointed to hear that customer service was unresposive to you.

 

I'd suggest putting yor complaint in writing. Doing so will require a more thoughtful (and hopefully

responsive) reply from the airline. In general, I've had better luck with written complints than with phone in complaints.. Details on how you could e-mail the airline are on the top left of the contact us webpage 

 

https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html?clk=GFOOTER-CUSTOMER-CONTACT-US

 

Another option would be to write the CEO, Gary Kelly, a letter. He probably won't see it, but his admin assistant will. At the very least, the complaint will end up at the top of the customer service organization. At that level, your complaint will not simply be blown off.

 

Hope that helps.