Southwest passenger claims luggage was covered in flies

Dallas, TX--Tyler Archer was the last one waiting. Then, he was the last one waiting by far. The architect from Boston had landed in New Hampshire's Manchester Airport after a week in Dallas for business. He glanced once more at his watch, or at least where it used to be, forgetting that the time piece was in the tardy checked baggage.

Then, with a loud thump, and just before making his way to the airline's customer service counter, the rolling luggage case came bursting down the chute of the baggage claim and halted against the stainless steel edge. What he witnessed instantly melted away the elation that the arrival of the leather bag had brought.

"I had been waiting almost 40 minutes at baggage, I was tired, I missed my wife and kids immensely and I just wanted to get home," said Archer. "The last thing I wanted was late luggage. But, the even more laster thing that I wanted was luggage that was covered in flies. That's why I fly Southwest ... to avoid this. This is unacceptable."

Archer claims that he grabbed the fly-covered bag off the belt, walked to Southwest Airlines' ticketing counter and said, "So, bags fly free, huh?" The ticketing agent responded, "That's correct sir. At Southwest, Bags Fly Free. It's our policy."

The agent was appalled when Archer showed her the bag and the staggering number of flies that were stuck to the sides, zippers, pockets and handles, some buzzing and hovering inches off the surface. She profusely apologized to the Beantown architect, who, along with his family, are headed anywhere Southwest flies for two weeks courtesy of the Texas-based airline.

"The cargo hold of a jetliner is filled with flies," said Dennis Toliver, a Southwest Airlines luggage technician. "We're not going to remove every single fly from a bag during every single flight. That's just a simple fact. When the marketing department consulted me about the 'Bags Fly Free' campaign, I said you guys are flippin' nuts. Yeah, I called the head marketing guy flippin' nuts. I'm a legend among the luggage guys now."

When Southwest launched their "Bags Fly Free" campaign in early 2009, competing airlines were floored by the announcement because of the shear number of insects that make their homes in the holds of most of the jetliners around the world--a fact that only a small percentage of the general public is aware of.

"It's not that the cargo luggage holds are unkempt," said Toliver. "It's just that the high altitudes combined with the unpressurized chambers are perfect breeding grounds for flies ... thousands of them. We do all we can to reduce that number and clean the luggage but it's a tough job. This is on top of getting the luggage to the cities that they are actually supposed to go."

Each airline around the world is required by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to "de-fly" each piece of luggage once removed from an aircraft. Under this FAA requirement, not all flies must be removed, but, at the very least, 96% must be taken off. Most of the flies that do survive the "de-flying" process usually end up dropping off on the multitude of conveyor belts, and the resulting jarring and shifting, that make up the entire subsurface baggage claim system, which is why only on occasion do passengers see the actual flies.

"For Southwest to come out and guarantee that bags fly free was really astonishing," said United Airlines' grounds crew supervising manager at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, Jim Lakefield. "I mean, that's huge. That is guts right there. I demand the best from my crew here in Chicago when it comes to fly removal, but even I know we can't get them all."

"Yeah, one day I check my phone and it had, like, 30 messages on it," said Wayne Dranoff, baggage handler manager for Continental Airlines at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. "Colleagues from around the country were calling to tell me about Southwest's bold 'Bags Fly Free' slogan. I was like, 'hot damn, that's bold.'"