A planned power outage at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport caused baggage mayhem for some Southwest Airlines passengers on Tuesday.
One flight in particular — flight 1654 from Fort Lauderdale to Nashville, Tennessee — left almost every passenger who had checked a bag at FLL to find out their baggage was still grounded in South Florida once in TN.
In response to the mixup, Southwest said, “An anticipated and planned power outage last night related to construction at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport caused some residual effects impacting our baggage handling.”
Southwest chose to get the plane in the air on time at 6:30 a.m. before all the bags could be locked and loaded on board.
“Bottom line, I think Southwest should have notified us, because they knew of the problem prior to us boarding,” said one passenger.
Southwest has reassured its passengers that once the luggage arrives, they can pick up their bags at the Nashvile airport or the bags will be delivered as soon as possible.
The airline said its luggage system is now back on track and working properly.