Delta Sends Empty Plane to Rescue Lost Luggage

Image: Delta Air Lines plane. (photo via Jennifer May / iStock / Getty Images Plus)
Image: Delta Air Lines plane. (photo via Jennifer May / iStock / Getty Images Plus)
Rich Thomaselli
by Rich Thomaselli
Last updated: 5:50 PM ET, Wed July 13, 2022

Call it a different twist on a humanitarian effort.

By now you've no doubt heard about the literal mountain of luggage that has been building for weeks inside terminals at London's Heathrow International Airport. With staffing shortages, little to no baggage handlers, and airlines prioritizing which flights get luggage sent with them - and which flights don't - it's been chaotic, to say the least.

But during a conference call with analysts and investors this morning for its quarterly earnings announcement, Delta Air Lines and CEO Ed Bastian revealed an interesting tidbit.

Delta recently sent a plane to London to help its customers retrieve their missing bags.

No passengers on the plane at all.

Just literally thousands of bags.

"We had a separate charter just to repatriate bags back to customers that have been stranded because of some of the operational issues the European airports were having," said Bastian.

"We did that on our own nickel just to reunite or to help the customers sort their bags as quickly as possible," Bastian added.


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Rich Thomaselli

Rich Thomaselli

Associate Writer

Editor Associate Writer true 9281 14744 Rich Thomaselli has written for TravelPulse since 2014 and has been a professional journalist for nearly 40 years. His work has appeared in USA Today, the New York Times and New York Yankees publications. He is an 11-time writ

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