While travelers are used to dropping off their suitcases during check-in and then picking them up at another city's baggage claim several hours later (or, alternately, bringing them into the plane as carry-ons), there is an entire procedure of steps that airport crew go through in order to get bags onto their planes and to their destinations.
The journey begins after a bag tag is printed at the counter and the suitcase is loaded onto a conveyor belt taking it to the loading area. Bags are then sorted and loaded onto the plane by crew to be unloaded or transferred to the traveler's connecting plane at arrival.
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Occasionally, accidents occur at different stages of this process. At around 6:30 p.m. on May 8, a worker driving a baggage belt loader accidentally hit a Hawaiian Airlines (HA) plane scheduled to go from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas (LAS) to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) in Honolulu.
This is what happened when a baggage handler hit a plane about to take off
While the damage to the Airbus A300-200 (EADSF) was minimal and mostly cosmetic, the fact that the loader had made contact with the aircraft meant that it could not fly without going through a mechanical inspection. As it was already late and the crew members available at the airport were too close to exceeding their duty times to start a new inspection, the flight ended up being canceled.
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While the flight was initially scheduled for Thursday morning, the investigation dragged on and a lack of available planes pushed it back for two more days until Saturday, May 11.
In a statement to Hawaii News Now, Hawaiian Airlines said that travelers were put up in nearby accommodation and given $20 food vouchers for each day the flight did not run — but the uncertainty, disproportionate sum of the voucher compared to expenses incurred and inconvenience of missing several days of a Hawaiian vacation started to seriously wear on travelers.
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'We would be waiving any right to compensation'
"We're all pretty unsure if this flight is even gonna go, we're not having a good time," Nichole, a passenger who was aboard the plane with her family, described to the news outlet. "They also let us know if we were to go with another airline or they were to rebook us another way that we would be waiving any right to compensation."
Nichole said she also lost more than $1,000 because she was traveling with a group that had nine pieces of luggage between them and had to pay the hotel to keep the bags amid uncertainty around which day they would fly out. Other passengers complained about being made to a share a hotel room with other travelers they had never met due to lack of availability when accommodation for a plane of nearly 300 people suddenly became necessary and the airport hotel only had so many available rooms.
Hawaiian Airlines apologized for the situation and said that it would process refunds and compensation for any incurred expenses within the next four weeks.
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