Luggage fiasco includes Tampa

PHILADELPHIA - For the third day in a row, US Airways passengers were separated from thousands of pieces of lost luggage, many of them at Philadelphia International Airport. And in Florida, at least two airports were littered Saturday with hundreds of unclaimed bags while passengers, mostly with US Airways and Delta Air Lines, endured a frustrating search for their missing luggage.

Couriers at Tampa International Airport were trying to deliver about 400 to 600 suitcases to travelers who arrived late Saturday before their bags, spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said.

At Miami International Airport, more than 100 bags were stacked around the baggage carousels for Delta Airlines on Saturday, while at least 100 passengers searched for their checked luggage.

The supervisor at the Delta counter directed all calls to its corporate headquarters, which did not immediately return a page Saturday.

US Airways, which originally cited winter storms, on Saturday blamed canceled flights and baggage backups on a large number of employees calling in sick.

"We have had an unusually high number of flight attendant sick calls and an unusually high number of bag handler sick calls in Philadelphia," airline spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said. Philadelphia is a US Airways hub.

Spokespeople for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents US Airways baggage handlers, and the Association of Flight Attendants said they had not organized any job actions.

"There is no union action. It's poor management planning, that's my opinion. . . . We have sick calls every single year around the holiday," said Teddy Xidas, president of the Association of Flight Attendants Local 40 in Pittsburgh.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has directed senior officials to talk with US Airways management about problems at the Philadelphia airport, Transportation Department spokesman Robert Johnson said Saturday.

"We are obviously concerned about the situation, and we will be interested in learning more from the airline about how the passengers and their luggage came to be stranded," Johnson said.

The baggage backups extended to other East Coast airports.

In Virginia, hundreds of unclaimed bags from US Airways flights were piled at Richmond International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Shirley Malave flew from Philadelphia to Florida on Saturday to be with relatives, but when she arrived in Tampa she discovered that her luggage wasn't on the US Airways plane with her. She waited for two more flights from Philadelphia, but her luggage didn't come.

"They ruined everybody's Christmas," said Malave, who lives near Tom's River, N.J.

She was offered a $50 stipend to buy clothes, but on Christmas Day, "good luck trying to find something open," she said. "I have no clothes. Nothing."

Systemwide, US Airways canceled 80 flights Saturday and 100 flights Friday, Kudwa said.

Extra flights carrying nothing but luggage were scheduled to fly from Philadelphia to the airline's bag processing facility in Charlotte, N.C., where workers could help process bags more quickly, Kudwa said.

Struggling US Airways, bankrupt for the second time in two years, says it needs to drastically cut labor costs if it is to survive beyond mid January, when its interim financing arrangement with the federal government's Air Transportation Stabilization Board is set to expire.

US Airways reservations and gate agents approved a new contract Thursday that cut pay by 13 percent. The airline still needs deals from its flight attendants and its machinists' union.

COMAIR CANCELS FLIGHTS Comair canceled all its 1,100 flights on Saturday because computer problems knocked out its system that manages flight assignments, a spokesman said.

Nick Miller, a spokesman for the Delta subsidiary based at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Regional Airport, said the cancellations affected 30,000 travelers in 118 cities.

Miller said the company was trying to put travelers on Delta flights. By Saturday night it was still unclear whether Comair would have any flights Sunday.

Miller said the problem was triggered in part by flights canceled Thursday and Friday because of bad weather.

"There was a cumulative effect with the canceled flights and trying to get crew assigned that caused the system to be overwhelmed," he said. "It just stopped operating."

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