After a Spirit Airlines passenger came up empty-handed at the Fort Lauderdale baggage carousel, she received a message from her Apple Watch, which was packed in her missing suitcase: her luggage was at a house 50 minutes away from the airport. More specifically, as she later found out, her suitcase was at the home of an airport retail worker.
Paola Garcia, a university student whose computer had been packed inside her missing bag, waited for two hours at the airport for her pink hardshell suitcase before airport officials told her they would send it to her address the next day. But of course, that didn't happen. From The Independent:
What Garcia did not know at the time, was that her suitcase had been allegedly taken by 29-year-old Junior Bazile, who, in surveillance footage, was seen rummaging through the case in the back of an airport retail store he worked at, according to an arrest affidavit and pictures obtained by the outlet. …
Garcia told the local outlet that after she got the signal from her Apple Watch, she decided to go to the house herself because she had a "test that day" and needed her computer.
Once she arrived, she allegedly saw a number of suitcases all around the property and decided to call 911. …
A detective from the Broward Sheriff's Office then put the address of the house through an internal airport database and discovered that Bazile worked at a retail store inside the airport and was logged as working the day Garcia's suitcase went missing.
Police arrested Bazile, charging him with grand theft. While appearing in court, a reporter asked to hear his side of the story, to which the thieving gentleman simply replied, "Go away."
Spirit Airlines later said in a statement that it "issued a reimbursement check to the guest as a 'courtesy.'" Courtesy? How about having the courtesy to guard passengers' bags until they are reunited with their owners?
Previously: Spirit Airlines denies Puerto Rican family a flight to Puerto Rico, erroneously saying they need passports
